Background

AMR occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites no longer respond to antimicrobial agents. As a result of drug resistance, antibiotics and other antimicrobial agents become ineffective and infections become difficult or impossible to treat, increasing the risk of disease spread, severe illness and death. Antimicrobials – including antibiotics, antivirals, antifungals and antiparasitics – are medicines used to prevent and treat infections in humans, animals, and plants. Left unchecked, AMR will roll back a century of medical progress, damage the environment, interrupt food production, cause more people to fall into extreme poverty and imperil global health security.

The fight against AMR and efforts to achieve universal health coverage (UHC) are closely interlinked. UHC means that everyone, everywhere, has access to the health services they need without financial hardship. Achieving this goal is becoming more difficult with increasing AMR, which makes the provision of health care more challenging, less effective, and more expensive. On the other hand, UHC offers a great potential for addressing AMR. Read more in the statement from UHC2030’s Co-Chairs on the occasion of the World AMR Awareness Week

UN General Assembly High-Level Meeting on antimicrobial resistance 2024

The UN General Assembly will convene a High-Level Meeting on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) for the second time during its 79th session (UNGA 79) in New York in September 2024. Drug-resistant infections know no borders, meaning no single country can respond to AMR alone. This meeting is an important opportunity for world leaders to collectively address the looming threat AMR poses to global health, food security, and achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. Read more on the WHO website.

The Multi-stakeholder Hearings on AMR 

UHC2030 and the CSEM were in the room to raise voices of civil society at the Multistakeholder Hearings on AMR, which took place in New York on May 15. 

The UHC2030 Co-Chair, highlighted that efforts to achieve UHC & control AMR are interlinked with the same goal of increasing access to essential health services for everyone, everywhere, without financial hardship.

The CSEM Coordinator, Waiswa Nkwanga, particularly, made a statement to call governments to ensure meaningful engagement of CSOs and vulnerable communities as equal partners, not only in decision-making, but also in accountability for Antimicrobial Resistance

We invite civil society advocate to use the Toolkit to read the AMR Toolkit to promote messages on UHC.