The funding will include:
- £6.2 million to strengthen existing surveillance
systems tracking AMR trends across Africa and Asia
- £12 million to improve collaborations on health
systems research between low- and middle-income countries
and the UK, for example countries in sub-Saharan Africa
The Chief Medical Officer, , announced
the funding for the projects at the UN General Assembly.
She warned that the world cannot achieve universal health
coverage without addressing the threat of AMR.
Universal health coverage is a UN ambition, and aims for
every person across the globe to have access to basic
healthcare, whatever their situation.
AMR is involved in 700,000 deaths around the world every
year, and this is expected to rise to 10 million deaths a
year by 2050. If AMR continues to follow current
trends, common infections will become complex and
expensive to treat, affecting tens of millions of people.
Achieving universal healthcare coverage also requires
rigorous research to inform health policy and health
systems.
Professor Davies is representing the UK at the UN General
Assembly high-level meeting on universal health
coverage in New York alongside heads of state,
health experts and policy-makers.
She will point to infection prevention and control
measures, such as immunisation, good hygiene and
appropriate antibiotic use, as crucial to achieving both
universal healthcare coverage and eliminating the threat
of AMR.
The £6.2 million in UK Aid investment will come from
the Fleming
Fund. It will help improve AMR data quality,
collection and sharing across Africa and Asia, with the
aim of developing policy and action from that data.
The invitation to
apply for a share of £12 million of funding is
being made by the National Institute of Health Research
(NIHR) Global Health Research programme. It will enable
experts from low- and middle-income countries and the UK
to form partnerships to contribute to universal health
coverage and sustainable development goals.
The Fleming Fund and NIHR Global Health Research funding
was first announced as part of the 2015 spending review.
The UN has committed to ensuring all people have access
to affordable healthcare by 2030, and yesterday member
states adopted a declaration recognising that tackling
AMR and innovative health research is crucial to this.
Chief Medical Officer for England, said:
Achieving our common goal of universal health coverage
will require global action on a multitude of fronts,
including tackling the escalating threat of
antimicrobial resistance and investing in research.
I am delighted to announce this funding, which will
catalyse regional collaboration to help strengthen AMR
surveillance systems across Africa and Asia and support
the next generation of health policy and systems
research.
