Open Outbreak

Should I be worried about Antimicrobial resistance?

Updated · Graded from official assessments; nothing here is medical advice.

Antimicrobial resistance · Attention: high

If you are in the affected area no assessment
No agency has published an assessment for people in affected areas for antimicrobial resistance as a whole. The main official notice available is WHO's 31 July 2024 global notice on hypervirulent, carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae, which assessed global risk only.
If you are elsewhere in the same country or region no assessment
No agency has published a same-country assessment for antimicrobial resistance as a whole. The main official notice available is WHO's 31 July 2024 global notice on hypervirulent, carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae, which did not give a national-level rating.
If you are travelling there soon no assessment
No agency has published an assessment for travellers for antimicrobial resistance as a whole. The main official notice available is WHO's 31 July 2024 global notice on hypervirulent, carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae.
If you are elsewhere in the world moderate
WHO assessed the global risk from hypervirulent, carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae as moderate on 31 July 2024. WHO said surveillance is not systematic and the prevalence of these infections may be underestimated. According to WHO

What is happening

Antimicrobial resistance is a continuing worldwide health threat rather than a single outbreak. In the last 14 days, no new WHO Disease Outbreak News item or other official global case tally was identified for antimicrobial resistance as a whole. The main official benchmark remains WHO's 31 July 2024 notice on hypervirulent, carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae, which reported presence in at least one country in all six WHO regions. No official global figure for cases or deaths was published in this period; recent media reports were narrower and unverified, including a hospital outbreak report and coverage of a tuberculosis resistance-prediction tool rather than a new global outbreak count. Officials continue to focus on laboratory diagnosis and susceptibility testing, genomic or molecular detection, infection prevention and control in health-care settings, screening and isolation where indicated, antimicrobial stewardship, and access to last-line drugs and antifungals.

Who is affected and how it spreads

Antimicrobial resistance is not one single disease; it is a problem that can affect many infections, including urinary tract infections, pneumonia, bloodstream infections, and wound infections. Who is affected depends on the organism involved, but resistant germs are a particular problem in hospitals and care homes and can also spread through food, water, and the environment. They spread through the same routes as the infections they cause, including direct contact, droplets for some respiratory infections, contaminated hands and surfaces, health-care procedures, and environmental exposure; resistance genes can also spread between bacteria. How severe an infection becomes varies widely by organism, where the infection is in the body, and whether any effective drugs are still available.

What we are watching

Updates

Sources