Tackling antimicrobial resistance should be “top five” priority for UK government, MPs urge

Modern medicine will effectively be lost if the government fails to take concrete action within six months to tackle antimicrobial resistance, MPs have warned.

In a report on antimicrobial resistance published on 22 October,1 the parliamentary health and social care committee said that the government must make the issue a “top five policy priority” and must urgently improve the market for drug companies to focus on developing and introducing new antibiotics.

“Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) poses a grave threat to health,” the committee warned. “Quite simply, if action is not taken to address this growing threat, we are told that modern medicine will be lost. By 2050 it is …