A new report from the World Health Organization sounds the alarm on rising antibiotic resistance globally.
The 2025 Global Antibiotic Resistance Surveillance Report shares prevalence estimates for 22 antibiotics used to treat eight common bacterial pathogens. Estimates are based on data collected by the WHO Global Antimicrobial Resistance and Use Surveillance System from more than 100 countries.
Four report findings:
1. One in six common bacterial infections globally was resistant to antibiotics in 2023.
2. Resistance increased in more than 40% of monitored pathogens between 2018 and 2023. On average, resistance rose 5% to 15% annually for each pathogen-antibiotic pair.
3. Drug-resistant Gram-negative bacteria, particularly, pose an escalating global threat, the report found. More than 40% of E. coli and Klebsiella pneumonia strains worldwide are resistant to third-generation cephalosporins — the standard first-line antibiotics.
4. The effectiveness of other critical antibiotics, including carbapenems and fluoroquinolones, is also diminishing against multiple bacteria such as Salmonella and Acinetobacter.
“Antimicrobial resistance is outpacing advances in modern medicine, threatening the health of families worldwide,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, PhD, said in an Oct. 13 news release. “As countries strengthen their AMR surveillance systems, we must use antibiotics responsibly, and make sure everyone has access to the right medicines, quality-assured diagnostics, and vaccines. Our future also depends on strengthening systems to prevent, diagnose and treat infections and on innovating with next-generation antibiotics and rapid point-of-care molecular tests.”
View the full report here.
