78th WHA Individual Statements
Antimicrobial resistance causes 5 million deaths annually and could kill 50 million in the coming decades. Hospitals are on the frontlines, yet prevention is under-prioritized. As antibiotics are overused to boost livestock growth, industrial agriculture is a major driver for AMR. The WHO’s AMR strategy fails to challenge the commercial interests fueling this and ignores the ecological damage.
In healthcare, a profit-driven system causes both antibiotic overuse and deadly under-access. There’s no plan to curb pharmaceutical marketing or ensure accountability. Meanwhile, profit driven R&D has failed developing new antibiotics.
We call on the WHO and governments to protect health workers worldwide and tackle the public health crisis of AMR at its roots:
– End industrial factory farming
– Shift to agroecology
– Defund factory farms
– Invest in public pharmaceutical R&D