May 27, 2025
Overview:
This One Health Trust collaborative article explores the global burden of inappropriate antibiotic use. By analyzing 412 studies, the researchers identified key patterns of inappropriate antibiotic use across different regions, income levels, and healthcare access.
Despite being a leading driver of antimicrobial resistance, global data on antibiotic misuse has been limited. The findings help inform more effective antibiotic stewardship policies and identify gaps in access to care, especially in low-resource settings.
The Question:
What is the global burden of inappropriate antibiotic use? How do national income levels and access to care influence misuse? Which study methods and indicators are most commonly used to assess inappropriate antibiotic use?
The Findings
- Inappropriate use of antibiotics is widespread around the world. When access to healthcare is taken into account, high- and low-income countries show similar patterns of misuse.
- Clinical audits and patient interviews suggest that about 30 percent of all antibiotics used globally may be unnecessary. That is around 13,000,000 kilograms each year, similar to the total amount used in China annually.
- The most common reason for misuse is that antibiotics were given when there was no medical need.
- To tackle this problem, the world needs stronger antibiotic stewardship and standard ways to measure misuse, while also making sure that people everywhere have fair access to the antibiotics they do need.
Read the article in BMJ Public Health here.