A new World Health Organization (WHO) report has issued a stark warning that one in six laboratory-confirmed bacterial infections worldwide in 2023 were resistant to antibiotics, underscoring a deepening global health crisis. Between 2018 and 2023, antibiotic resistance increased in over 40% of pathogen–antibiotic combinations, with an average annual rise of 5–15%, according to the findings.
The data, compiled from over 100 countries through the Global Antimicrobial Resistance and Use Surveillance System (GLASS), highlights the urgent threat posed by increasing resistance to essential antibiotics.
The newly launched Global Antibiotic Resistance Surveillance Report 2025 provides, for the first time, resistance prevalence estimates for 22 key antibiotics used to treat infections of the urinary tract, gastrointestinal tract, bloodstream, and gonorrhoea. It tracks eight major bacterial pathogens – Acinetobacter spp., Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, non-typhoidal Salmonella spp., Shigella spp., Staphylococcus aureus, and Streptococcus pneumoniae – each responsible for one or more common human infections.
The report reveals significant geographical disparities. Antibiotic resistance is highest in the WHO South-East Asian and Eastern Mediterranean Regions, where one in three infections is resistant, compared to one in five in the African Region. Resistance is especially severe in countries with weaker healthcare systems, limited diagnostic capacity, and restricted access to effective antibiotics.
“Antimicrobial resistance is outpacing advances in modern medicine, threatening the health of families worldwide,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. “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.”
The WHO report identifies drug-resistant Gram-negative bacteria as the most urgent threat, particularly in low- and middle-income countries least equipped to respond. Among these, E. coli and K. pneumoniae are the most common drug-resistant organisms found in bloodstream infections, which can lead to sepsis, organ failure, and death.
More than 40% of E. coli and 55% of K. pneumoniae infections globally are now resistant to third-generation cephalosporins, the standard first-line treatment. In some regions of Africa, resistance exceeds 70%.
Other vital antibiotics, including carbapenems and fluoroquinolones, are also rapidly losing effectiveness against E. coli, K. pneumoniae, Salmonella, and Acinetobacter. Carbapenem resistance, once rare, is now increasingly frequent, leaving clinicians with few effective options and forcing reliance on last-resort antibiotics—often expensive, hard to access, and unavailable in many resource-limited settings.
Participation in WHO’s GLASS network has expanded more than fourfold — from 25 countries in 2016 to 104 in 2023. Yet, significant data gaps remain: nearly half of all countries did not report AMR data in 2023, and many still lack robust surveillance systems to generate reliable information.
The 2024 UN General Assembly Political Declaration on AMR established global targets to curb antimicrobial resistance through stronger health systems and a One Health approach, integrating human, animal, and environmental health.
To achieve meaningful progress, WHO emphasizes that countries must invest in laboratory capacity, generate accurate surveillance data, and align treatment guidelines with local resistance patterns.
WHO has urged all nations to submit high-quality AMR and antibiotic-use data to GLASS by 2030, calling for coordinated efforts to improve the quality, coverage, and transparency of surveillance systems.
The report is accompanied by an interactive digital dashboard providing global and regional overviews, country-specific profiles, and detailed insights on antimicrobial use and resistance trends, helping policymakers and clinicians track progress and tailor interventions.