The global response to AMR: momentum, success, and critical gaps

1. The AMR community has achieved notable recent successes:

• AMR has gained prominence on the global political agenda – it has moved from a largely medical topic to a political one 
• the AMR community has grown into a broad, multi-sectoral coalition of actors that come from a range of sectors, including human health, animals and agriculture, and the environment
• early-stage and translational research are robustly funded.

2. Critical gaps are threatening this progress: 

• global AMR discussions in the past few years have not translated into action, particularly in low- and middle-income countries
• prioritising interventions has been difficult, mainly due to the complex, multifaceted nature of AMR
• the AMR agenda was at risk of losing momentum even before Covid-19; the pandemic has made this concern more acute. 

3. Covid-19 has radically altered the world’s conversation on public health, and will likely affect the global response to AMR in at least two ways:

• Covid-19 has placed both upward and downward pressure on the development of drug resistance in infections 
• the policy fallout from Covid-19 brings both risks and opportunities for the attention AMR receives on a policy level, including funding, advocacy, and research. 

4. The next few years will define the trajectory of the long-term AMR response and how successful it can be: 

• there is a clear need to rethink the positioning of AMR as part of the global health agenda
• the AMR community must align on a specific critical path to achieve impact.