www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/feb/07/farming-pharmaceutical-and-health-pollution-fuelling-rise-in-suberbugs-un-warns
Resistant superbugs can survive in untreated sewage.
The findings of the new report, published on Tuesday, show that pollution and a lack of sanitation in the developing world can no longer be regarded by the rich world as a faraway and localised problem for poor people. When superbugs emerge, they quickly spread, and threaten the health even of people in well-funded healthcare systems in the rich world.
Poor sanitation and healthcare, and a lack of regulation in animal farming, create breeding grounds for resistant bacteria, and threaten global health as a result, the UN Environment Programme found in the report. As many as 10 million people a year could be dying by 2050 as a result of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), according to the UN, making it as big a killer as cancer is today.
The rise of superbugs will also take an economic toll, resulting in the loss of about $3.4tn a year by the end of this decade, and pushing 24 million people into extreme poverty.
Inger Andersen, executive director of UNEP, said: “Pollution of air, soil and waterways undermines the human right to a clean and healthy environment. The same drivers that cause environmental degradation are worsening the antimicrobial resistance problem. The impacts of anti-microbial resistance could destroy our health and food systems.”
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