In 2014, the then prime minister David Cameron commissioned a review into a worrying global phenomenon: an increase in drug-resistant infections. “If we fail to act,” he warned, “we are looking at an almost unthinkable scenario where antibiotics no longer work and we are cast back into the dark ages of medicine.” 

The economist Jim O’Neill, who chaired the review, predicted that by 2050 “ten million lives a year” and a “cumulative cost of $100trn of economic output” would be at risk from bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites increasingly resisting treatment. Six years on, however, anti-microbial resistance (AMR) continues to endanger humanity. 

Alona Ferber, editor of the New Statesman's Spotlight policy channel, is joined by three expert guests to discuss why AMR is so complex, how far we have come in tackling it since the 2016 review, and what our best hopes are for getting this dangerous trend under control: Pfizer UK's managing director and country president Susan Rienow, the UK government's AMR envoy Sally Davies, and the microbiologist Laura Piddock, scientific director of the Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership in Geneva. 

This special episodes has been funded by Pfizer Limited. Non Pfizer panelist's views are independent, but content has been reviewed by Pfizer Limited for A B P I code compliance. 

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