New Center for Global Development report urges global push to fight drug resistance, including action from Pharma

Efforts to improve the health of poor people in the developing world by increasing the availability of drugs to treat diseases such as malaria, HIV, and tuberculosis are having a serious unintended side effect: accelerated drug resistance, which is raising costs and claiming lives.

A new report from the Washington DC, USA-based non-for-profit Center for Global Development (CGD) warns that the world is rapidly losing its ability to treat these and more common diseases, such as dysentery and respiratory infections that can lead to deadly pneumonia.

The report finds clear links between increased drug availability and resistance, noting, for example that, in countries with the highest use of antibiotics, 75% to 90% of Streptococcus pneumoniae strains are drug-resistant. Poor quality drugs, counterfeit medicines, incomplete use of drugs and other factors all contribute to the problem, the report found. And this problem will worsen as drug access programs succeed, it cautions.