Resetting the agenda for antibiotic resistance through a health systems perspective.

Although the individual and societal consequences of antibiotic resistance spiral upwards, coordinated action has not kept pace on a global scale. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for resilient health systems and has resulted in an unprecedented rate of collaboration in scientific, medical, social, and political dimensions. The pandemic has also created a renewed awareness of the importance of infectious diseases and is a substantial entry point for reigniting the momentum towards containing the silent pandemic of antibiotic resistance. In this Viewpoint, we discuss the limitations in the current narrative on antibiotic resistance and how it could be improved, including concerted efforts to close essential data gaps. We discuss the need for capacity building and coordination at the national and global levels to strengthen the understanding of the importance of sustainable access to effective antibiotics for all health systems that could generate tangible links to current processes for global health and development.

Competing Interests: Declaration of interests All authors report grants from ReAct, during the conduct of the study. OC is a former member of the Strategic and Technical advisory group on antimicrobial resistance for WHO and a former member of the ad hoc UN Interagency Coordination Group on Antimicrobial Resistance. ADS has received financial support for research and policy work related to antibiotic resistance from the Open Society Foundation, the Greenwall Foundation, and WHO; and has served as co-convener of the ad hoc UN Interagency Coordination Group on Antimicrobial Resistance and participated in multiple WHO expert consultations on antimicrobial resistance.

(Copyright © 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an Open Access article under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)