Britain’s Health Secretary Announces U.K. Plan To Reduce Antimicrobial-Resistant Infections, Spur New Drug Development

BBC News: Antibiotic resistance plan to fight ‘urgent’ global threat
“…[U.K.] Health Secretary Matt Hancock, launching the government’s 20-year vision at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland, will say: ‘Each and every one of us benefits from antibiotics but we all too easily take them for granted and I shudder at the thought of a world in which their power is diminished. Antimicrobial resistance is as big a danger to humanity as climate change or warfare. That’s why we need an urgent global response’…” (1/24).

CNN: Superbugs ‘as big a global threat as climate change and warfare’
“Drug-resistant superbugs are as big a threat to the world as climate change or wars, Britain’s Health Secretary Matt Hancock warned during a speech at Davos in which he unveiled a five-year action plan for the U.K., and a 20-year vision, to tackle the threat of antimicrobial resistance by 2040…” (John, 1/24).

Financial Times: Matt Hancock outlines plan to counter resistance to antibiotics
“The U.K. government will give incentives to the pharmaceutical industry to develop drugs to counter resistance to antibiotics, as the health secretary warned that the world was on the cusp of a new reality where ‘a simple graze could be deadly’…” (Neville, 1/23).

The Guardian: Pharma firms to be incentivized to develop new superbug drugs
“…Under the plans, the inappropriate use of antibiotics would also be cut by 15 percent, reducing resistant infections and potentially saving thousands of lives in the U.K. … The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence and NHS England will explore how a new payment model could pay pharmaceutical companies for drugs based on how valuable the medicines are to the health service, rather than on the simple basis of the sheer quantity of antibiotics sold…” (Busby, 1/23).

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