The Global Research on Antimicrobial Resistance (GRAM) Project published a study in Lancet Planetary Health. As per study, global antibiotic consumption rates have increased by 46% in last two decades.

Key Points

• GRAM used a novel approach, by deploying statistical modelling techniques.
• It incorporated several data sources and types like large-scale household surveys in low-income & middle-income countries, antibiotic consumption data from World Health Organisation (WHO) and pharmaceutical sales data.
• GRAM also gathered data from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).
• GRAM study provides a comparative analysis of “antibiotic consumption rates” globally. This rate is defined in WHO metric of “defined daily doses (DDD) per 1000 population per day”.

Findings of the study

• Variation in total antibiotic consumption rates, across the country, ranges from 5 DDD to 45.9 DDD per 1000 population per day.
• In between 2000-2018, global antibiotic consumption rate increased by 46%, accounting for an increase from 9.8 to 14.3 DDD per 1000 population per day.
• In low-income & middle-income countries, anti-biotic consumption rate increased by 76%, accounting an increase from 7.4 to 13.1 DDD per 1000 per day.
• However, in high-income countries, consumption rates were stable.
• Antibiotic consumption rates in South Asia increased by 116%.
• Second largest increase (111%) was witnessed in North Africa and Middle East region.