LONDON, Apr 13 (BBC): More than three million children around the world are thought to have died in 2022 as a result of infections that are resistant to antibiotics, according to a study by two leading experts in child health.
Children in Africa and South East Asia were found to be most at risk. Antimicrobial resistance - known as AMR - develops when the microbes that cause infections evolve in such a way that antibiotic drugs no longer work.
It has been identified as one of the biggest public health threats facing the world's population. A new study now reveals the toll that AMR is taking on children.
Using data from multiple sources, including the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Bank, the report's authors have calculated there were more than three million child deaths in 2022 linked to drug-resistant infections.
Experts say this new study highlights a more than tenfold increase in AMR-related infections in children in just three years. The number could have been made worse by the impact of the Covid pandemic.
Antibiotics are used to treat or prevent a huge range of bacterial infections - everything from skin infections to pneumonia.
They are also sometimes given as a precaution to prevent, rather than treat, an infection - for example if someone is having an operation or receiving chemotherapy treatment for cancer.
Antibiotics have no impact on viral infections, though - illnesses such as the common cold, flu or Covid.
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