Overview

• At least one antibiotic failed in 17% of infections in 2023, a roughly 40% increase over five years, according to the WHO.
• Resistance rose in more than 40% of 22 tracked bacterium–antibiotic combinations between 2018 and 2023, with annual increases of about 5% to 15% depending on the pair.
• Hotspots include Southeast Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean, where about one in three reported infections were resistant, compared with roughly 10% in the WHO Europe region.
• Common pathogens such as Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae increasingly evade standard treatments, which fail in about 40% and 55% of bloodstream cases globally and in over 70% in parts of Africa.
• The WHO attributes 7.7 million deaths to bacterial infections in 2021, including about 1.1 million directly linked to resistance, and urges improved hygiene, vaccination, stewardship, expanded surveillance, and accelerated development of new antibiotics.