Best to tackle superbugs at source than through medication

Improved hygiene, sanitation, and surveillance, akin to that of John Snow in the 1850s, could save hundreds of millions of lives in the coming decades, writes Jim O’Neill            

COMBATING antimicrobial resistance will require groundbreaking technological solutions. To prevent superbugs from claiming an estimated 10m lives a year by 2050, we will need to invent new types of antimicrobial drugs and develop rapid diagnostic tests to avoid unnecessary treatment and cut our massive overuse of antibiotics.

And yet, as important as these hi-tech contributions may be, they are only partial fixes. To tackle the problem permanently, the only option is to prevent infections from occurring in the first place — with improved hygiene, sanitation, and disease surveillance. Only by focusing on these areas will we lower demand for new drugs in the long term.