WHO launches a policy brief addressing antimicrobial resistance in fragile and conflict-affected situations

The policy brief calls attention to how fragile and conflict-affected settings (FCS) — where health systems are disrupted, populations are displaced, and access to diagnostics and treatment is limited — are hotspots for increasing antimicrobial resistance.  Globally, AMR already contributed to an estimated 4.71 million deaths in 2021, including 1.14 million directly attributable to drug-resistant infections; trends suggest this burden could rise dramatically by 2050. The brief urges humanitarian, development, and reconstruction actors — from aid agencies and governments to development banks and UN bodies — to embed AMR mitigation strategies into humanitarian and recovery responses.

It proposes a people-centred, context-adaptive framework rooted in the four core pillars endorsed at the recent World Health Assembly: prevention of infections, ensuring access to effective antimicrobial treatment, strengthening diagnostic capacity, and supporting appropriate use of antimicrobials. The recommended interventions span seven domains, including infection-prevention & control, surveillance, community engagement, primary and mobile care, and addressing broader health determinants — all aimed at building health-system resilience, even under crisis conditions.

In doing so, the brief marks a milestone: it is the first WHO policy guidance specifically targeting AMR in fragile and conflict-affected contexts. By highlighting the compounded risks in such settings and offering actionable, context-aware mitigation strategies, it aims to guide funding, humanitarian planning, reconstruction efforts and long-term health-security investments — acknowledging that AMR is as much an emergency-response issue as a public-health challenge.