Countries are ill prepared to fight antimicrobial resistance, WHO says

Three quarters of countries have no national plan to tackle antimicrobial resistance, despite such plans being seen as one of the most important components in combating the problem.1

A survey of 133 countries conducted by the World Health Organization in 2013 and 2014 found that just 34 had a comprehensive national plan to tackle antimicrobial resistance. The worst regions were WHO’s Americas, Africa, and Eastern Mediterranean regions. In the Americas only three of 26 respondent countries had a national plan, and the figure was only one in eight in Africa and none at all in the Eastern Mediterranean region, which stretches from Morocco to Pakistan. That compared with 21 of 49 respondent countries in WHO’s European region and five of 11 in its South East Asia region.

Some countries had …