A new Lancet study has revealed that the number of people losing their lives due to the development of resistance to drugs will increase by almost 70% by 2050.

The study said this trend reflects the ongoing superbug crisis. Superbugs are microorganisms, including bacteria, fungi, viruses and parasites, that resist antimicrobial treatments, making infections difficult to treat.

According to the study, antimicrobial resistance, or AMR, could directly cause more than 39 million deaths worldwide between 2025 and 2050.

Antimicrobial resistance occurs when microbes such as bacteria, viruses, fungi or parasites develop the ability to evade the drugs used to kill them.

The World Health Organization (WHO) states that AMR is “one of the greatest global threats to public health and development.” It is mainly caused by the misuse and overuse of antimicrobial drugs in humans, animals and plants, which has allowed pathogens to develop resistance to them.

According to lead author Dr. Chris Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, the new study highlights that antimicrobial resistance is likely to get worse.

“We urgently need to focus on developing new antibiotics and promoting responsible antibiotic use to tackle this important problem,” he said.

Researchers from the Global Research on Antimicrobial Resistance Project and other institutions analysed data from 520 million records to estimate deaths caused and associated with antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in 204 countries between 1990 and 2021.

“Attributable” deaths were directly caused by AMR, while “related” deaths were caused by other causes exacerbated by resistance.

The study found contradictory trends: improved vaccination, hygiene, and treatment programmes led to more than 50% reduction in AMR-related mortality among children under 5 years of age.

However, mortality rates have increased by more than 80% among adults over the age of 70, and this trend is expected to continue as the population ages, making older people more vulnerable to severe infections.

The greatest burden was from methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), with deaths due to which nearly doubled from 57,200 in 1990 to 1,30,000 in 2021.

Using statistical models, the researchers estimated that without significant improvements in health care and antibiotic access, global AMR-related deaths could reach 1.9 million by 2050.

The hardest-hit regions include South Asia, Latin America, and sub-Saharan Africa, where access to quality care remains limited.

However, with better health care or new antibiotics, millions of deaths could be avoided by 2050.

To reduce the burden of antibiotic resistance in India, a medical panel of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) is working towards formulating the first-ever comprehensive guidelines for the use of antibiotics in the country, mostly for upper respiratory infections, fever and community-acquired pneumonia.

According to news agency PTI, the process of generating evidence will involve compiling systematic reviews and meta-analyses from the existing literature, focusing on specific review questions.

The evidence from these reviews will be assessed using the GRADE (Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation) approach.

The apex health research body has invited expression of interest (EOI) from researchers for this endeavour.

This grading methodology will assess the quality of evidence, which will guide the development of recommendations through the Evidence to Decisions (ETD) framework.

The PICO review questions cover four major areas: when to start empiric antibiotics, which class of antibiotics to start, when to stop them, and when to change antibiotics.