Lives lost and disease burden related to antimicrobial resistance in the Americas can no longer be ignored

In this issue of The Lancet Regional Health—Americas, a Global Burden of Disease study led by the Antimicrobial Resistance Collaborators, provides the most comprehensive country-specific estimates of morbidity, mortality, and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) attributable to and associated with AMR in the Americas to date. The authors estimate the burden of AMR in 35 American countries building on recent global approximations by Murray et al.  Two scenarios are presented: a lower-bound counterfactual, where resistant infections are replaced by susceptible infections (attributable to AMR), and an upper-bound scenario, where resistant infections would not occur (associated with AMR).

The results offer a staggering insight into the alarming magnitude of the problem in the region.