MPs call on government to fund measures to curb threat of antibiotic resistant bugs

A parliamentary report has called for urgent government action on breaking a chain of cultivating antibiotic-resistant infections through mis-prescription and misuse of antibiotics that is creating a significant risk to UK health.

The report, Prevention first. Why clean water and hygiene are the best medicine against the spread of drug resistant infection, described a “silent pandemic”– largely originating overseas – where many health workers cannot rely on the availability of soap and clean water are over-prescribing antibiotics as a preventative measure which cultivates resistant bacteria.

A round half of the world’s healthcare centres, according to the report, lack clean water and decent sanitation meaning that infections spread much more easily. It said investment in healthcare facilities decreases the demand for antibiotics, “breaks the chain of infection and removes the opportunity for resistant infections to become dominant.”

The report warned that already antibiotic resistance claims more lives than HIV, malaria or breast cancer – some 5m a year. And it drug resistant infections, it said, are predicted to become the leading cause of death in the UK by 2050.

And according to the World Health Organisation, 70% of healthcare-acquired infections could be prevented through good hand hygiene and access to clean water.

The report, led by the All-Party Parliamentary Groups on Antibiotics and on Water, Sanitation and Hygiene. It found that addressing antibiotic resistance was “extremely cost effective.”

“Ensuring every healthcare facility in the world’s 46 least-developed countries has access to clean water and sanitation would cost an estimated $9.6bn. We would meet our fair share of the cost if the UK were to ring fence just 0.3% of its annual overseas aid budget for water, sanitation and hygiene.”