Antimicrobials: Drug Resistance

(asked on 21st March 2017) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what contingency plans the Government has made in the event of an anti-microbial resistance pandemic; and if he will place a copy of those plans in the Library.


This question was answered on 27th March 2017

The United Kingdom Government has plans in place for responding to pandemic influenza and other infectious diseases. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is not a single infectious disease as defined for the purposes of pandemic planning.

AMR is recognised as a long term risk and the numbers of infections complicated by it might rise markedly over a period of 20 years. It is in the National Security Risk Assessment which sets out the top risks likely to pose a threat to the UK in the next five to 20 years.

The Government is taking strong cross-government action to tackle AMR through the UK Five Year Antimicrobial Resistance Strategy published in 2013. The strategy represents an ambitious programme to slow the development and spread of AMR taking a “One-Health” approach spanning people, animals, agriculture and the wider environment. This includes an ambition to halve inappropriate prescribing in the UK by 2020, mitigating the risks of increased resistance.

Antimicrobial resistance is a global problem. The Government’s global leadership has helped secure a United Nations declaration on AMR and a commitment from the G20 to look at solutions to the market failure on the development of new antimicrobials.

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