WHO: One in six infections resistant to antibiotics globally in 2023

One in six laboratory confirmed bacterial infections worldwide in 2023 was resistant to at least one commonly used antibiotic, the World Health Organization said in a global surveillance report released Monday, warning that resistance is rising fastest in lower income regions and for several critical pathogens. The analysis drew on more than 23 million bacteriological test results submitted through the WHO Global Antimicrobial Resistance and Use Surveillance System from 104 countries, providing the first comprehensive, adjusted estimates across 22 antibiotics and eight common bacterial pathogens.

The report found that resistance increased in more than 40 percent of the pathogen antibiotic combinations monitored between 2018 and 2023, with average annual rises of roughly 5 to 15 percent for many combinations. Resistance was most pronounced in the WHO South East Asian and Eastern Mediterranean Regions, where about one in three reported infections were resistant, and higher than average in the African Region. By contrast, resistance rates were lowest in the Western Pacific and Europe. Urinary tract and bloodstream infections showed the highest levels of resistance among infection...