Antibiotic resistance already kills over twenty thousand Americans every year; no one knows the real impact on poorer nations. But estimates of the wider impact are beginning to emerge, and the British government claims that drug resistance will cost 6% of global wealth or roughly $14 trillion by 2050.
In my new paper, I discuss a new cause of this growing problem: substandard medicines.
People walk past a chemist shop at a market in Mumbai, India, June 25, 2015. REUTERS/Shailesh Andrade.
Increasing access to antibiotics for the poor has saved millions of lives but it has accelerated resistance. Indian companies make the cheapest antibiotics on the planet and they deserve huge credit for helping the poor. But some of these companies cut corners in production and make substandard products that positively drive resistance.
My research team finds that roughly 6% of the thousands of antimicrobial medicines we procured in emerging markets are substandard, and about half of these are from India.
There are no simple solutions to this problems, though acknowledging the risks is the first step.
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