Study Finds 83% of Indians Carry Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria

India has recorded the world’s highest prevalence of multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs), with 83% of patients carrying dangerous superbugs, according to a new Lancet eClinical Medicine study released during the WHO’s World AMR Awareness Week (November 18–24).

The international study — involving over 1,200 patients in India, Italy, the Netherlands and the US who underwent a common endoscopic procedure — warns that India is at the centre of a rapidly worsening antibiotic resistance crisis. Several Indian patients were found to carry multiple highly resistant organisms at the same time.

India’s MDRO rate of 83% was far higher than Italy’s 31.5%, the US’s 20.1% and the Netherlands’ 10.8%.

Among Indian participants, 70.2% carried ESBL-producing organisms, making many standard antibiotics ineffective, while 23.5% had carbapenem-resistant bacteria, which don’t respond even to last-resort drugs. Carbapenem-producing Enterobacterales were almost non-existent in the Netherlands and remained rare in the US.

The study calls for urgent policy intervention and a nationwide push for responsible antibiotic use to contain the growing threat.

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