WHO Sounds Alarm On Surging AMR, Warns South-East Asia At Highest Risk

The writing is clear on the wall: without decisive government action, the world risks entering a post-antibiotic era in which even minor injuries and routine infections could once again become fatal. The danger, public health experts warn, is no longer distant — it is accelerating.

Issuing one of its strongest cautions yet during World Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Awareness Week, the World Health Organization (WHO) urged countries to move swiftly to prevent a future where common infections are no longer treatable and routine surgeries become increasingly unsafe.

Early action, the WHO emphasised, is now the only safeguard to ensure that antibiotics — the backbone of modern medicine — remain effective and continue to save lives.

Calling on countries to “Act Now: Protect Our Present, Secure Our Future,” the WHO said South-East Asia remains one of the world’s most vulnerable regions, facing the fastest rise in drug-resistant infections.

“AMR threatens the very foundations of modern medicine, jeopardising decades of progress. In South-East Asia especially, infections that were once easily treated are becoming harder — and sometimes impossible — to cure,” warned Dr. Catharina Boehme, Officer-in-Charge, WHO South-East Asia.

The caution comes days after WHO released a major global analysis of resistance trends, drawing on over 23 million laboratory-confirmed cases of bloodstream infections, urinary tract infections, gastrointestinal infections and drug-resistant gonorrhoea. Data from 104 countries in 2023 and 110 countries between 2016 and 2023 show a steep global rise in several high-burden pathogens.

The data is grim. AMR is already responsible for more than a million deaths annually, with projections suggesting a rapid escalation in the coming decades if governments fail to scale up response systems.

The burden is heaviest in low and middle income countries, which face weaker health infrastructure, patchy regulation of antibiotics and limited access to accurate diagnostics. The 2025 Global AMR Surveillance Report highlights that South-East Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean recorded the highest levels of resistance in 2023.

According to the WHO, South-East Asia faces a set of distinctive and interlinked pressures that are accelerating the rise of antimicrobial resistance in the region. One major challenge is the region’s fragmented health systems, where quality of care varies widely across public, private and informal sectors, making coordinated AMR control difficult.

The WHO also notes uneven access to antibiotics, with some populations struggling to obtain essential medicines while others have uncontrolled and excessive access, creating conditions that allow resistant strains to thrive.

Another key driver is the widespread misuse of antimicrobials across both human and animal health sectors. Antibiotics are often used without proper diagnosis, prescribed unnecessarily, or employed as growth promoters in livestock, all of which fuel resistance.

Compounding the problem is the prevalence of over-the-counter antibiotic sales without prescriptions, a long-standing issue in several countries of the region. Easy availability leads to self-medication, incomplete dosage courses, and improper drug selection.

The WHO also highlighted the role of large and unregulated informal healthcare networks, which operate outside formal oversight systems. These providers often lack training in rational antibiotic use, contributing significantly to inappropriate prescribing practices.

Together, these pressures create an environment where resistant pathogens can spread quickly and silently, making South-East Asia one of the world’s most vulnerable regions in the fight against antimicrobial resistance, said the WHO.

“In these settings, resistant pathogens spread quickly and undetected,” Dr. Boehme noted, calling the situation a “tipping point” for the region.

To address the looming threat, Member States in October 2025 endorsed the Regional Roadmap on AMR (2025–2030), which outlines a strengthened, country-led response aligned with global AMR targets.

The roadmap calls for stronger national leadership and governance, emphasising that countries must take clear ownership of AMR strategies, strengthen regulatory frameworks, and ensure accountability across sectors.

It also urges the integration of antimicrobial resistance into broader public health priorities, so that AMR is not treated as an isolated issue but embedded within national health planning, disease-control programmes and universal health coverage efforts.

A key recommendation is the creation of sustainable financing mechanisms. Long-term, predictable funding will be essential for maintaining laboratories, training health workers, ensuring medicine quality and supporting evidence-based policymaking.

The roadmap further highlights the need for expanded laboratory and surveillance capacity, enabling countries to rapidly detect resistant pathogens, track trends, and respond effectively to outbreaks.

Strengthening regional partnerships is another priority. Countries in South-East Asia are encouraged to collaborate on data sharing, capacity building, research and cross-border containment of AMR.

Finally, the document calls for robust community-level interventions, including public awareness campaigns, responsible antibiotic use, improved sanitation, and stronger engagement with local health providers to curb misuse at the grassroots level.

The WHO has warned that the window for action is rapidly closing. Stronger surveillance, equitable access to high-quality medicines and diagnostics, innovation in new antimicrobials, and resilient multisectoral systems will require long-term political and financial commitment.

“We must prioritise long-term investment across human, animal and environmental health sectors,” Dr. Boehme stressed. “This is not a distant threat — AMR is already claiming lives, undermining essential treatments and placing enormous strain on health systems.”