“India procured most of the treatment courses (80.5 per cent; 83,468 courses), with 7.8 per cent of infections treated appropriately,” the authors wrote.The most procured antibiotic was tigecycline, usually prescribed in hospitals for serious infections.Most of the 15 lakh infections were found to have occurred in South Asia, with over 10 lakh infections estimated in India.The study also estimated that over a million people died each year between 1990 and 2021 due to antibiotic resistance, in which disease-causing bacteria become immune to drugs developed to kill them, thereby rendering these drugs ineffective.Over the past quarter-century, antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has emerged as a major global health threat. With bacterial drug resistance rates continuing to increase, and without concerted action, nearly 40 million cumulative deaths are projected by 2050.For the latest study, data from a systematic analysis of the burden of bacterial antimicrobial resistance from 1990 to 2021—named the GRAM (Global Research on Antimicrobial Resistance) study—were analysed, along with data from a healthcare database managed by IQVIA, a US-based life sciences company.The authors said the findings highlight the most recently available picture of the state of care for antimicrobial-resistant infections in the selected low- and middle-income countries.The results also underscore the need for meaningful action by global and national policymakers, the authors added.The study highlighted that it is estimated nearly 1.1 million deaths annually are a direct result of AMR—more than the combined deaths from HIV/AIDS and malaria in 2022.Overwhelmingly, low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) bear this burden—nearly 90 per cent of AMR-related deaths each year are estimated to occur in LMICs.
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