Published in the Tagesspiegel Background

By Peter Beyer, Deputy Executive Director, the Global Antibiotic Research & Development Partnership (GARDP) 

Sepsis is often described as a race against time. Every hour that passes before treatment increases the risk of organ failure and death. That is why in Germany, where more people die from sepsis compared with other high-income countries, like the US, Australia and the UK, public health campaigns have rightly focused on a single question: how can we recognise it sooner? 

Yet what is often missing from the discussion is that sepsis itself is becoming harder to treat because of antibiotic resistance. Some of the Gram-negative bacteria responsible for the most severe cases of sepsis are evolving resistance faster than new antibiotics are being developed. Winning the race against time only matters if there is still an effective treatment waiting at the finish line. 

Sepsis occurs when an infection triggers an inflammatory response, which if left untreated can quickly become life-threatening. Globally it is one of the biggest killers, and responsible for more than one fifth of all deaths. In Germany, where every year there are around 230,000 sepsis cases, of which more than 85,000 result in death, efforts to improve awareness and diagnosis are helping more patients receive treatment sooner. But increasingly those treatments are failing. 

The problem is particularly acute for some of the most difficult-to-treat Gram-negative bacteria that frequently cause severe bloodstream infections and sepsis, including Klebsiella pneumoniae, Escherichia coli and Acinetobacter baumannii. These pathogens are increasingly resistant to multiple antibiotics, leaving clinicians with fewer and fewer treatment options. In some cases, the antibiotics that once reliably cured infections are no longer effective. For patients with sepsis, that can mean the difference between recovery and a rapidly deteriorating condition. 

Worryingly, this is a trend that is likely to get worse. Antibiotic resistance is not just on the rise globally but is now believed to have reached a tipping point. With fewer antibiotics being developed, effective new drugs are not being made available to replace those lost to resistance. This is particularly the case for those that target the World Health Organization (WHO) priority pathogens, multidrug-resistant bacteria that pose the greatest public health threat. As a result, drug-resistant infections are now beginning to outpace antibiotic development. With the most difficult-to-treat Gram-negative infections expected to make up an increasing proportion of resistant infections, the number of associated deaths is forecast to rise sharply, increasing by 70% by 2050. 

Germany is not immune from this trend. Like many countries, it faces growing resistance among key pathogens and a pipeline of new antibiotics that remains dangerously thin. What’s more, with a growing population of older people and those living with chronic health conditions, more people in Germany will be at a high risk of sepsis. Yet, despite the remarkable progress of national campaigns like Deutschland Erkennt Sepsis in helping to improve sepsis awareness, and helping more people receive treatment sooner, the rise and spread of antibiotic resistance and the threat it poses remains largely absent from the conversation. The result is an increasingly fragile safety net beneath modern medicine. 

If we are serious about reducing sepsis mortality, we must recognise that the effectiveness of treatment is just as important as the speed with which it is delivered. That means investing not only in diagnostic tools, awareness campaigns and better clinical pathways, but also in the research and development of new antibiotics. 

However, there are reasons for optimism. Through public-private partnerships such as the Global Antibiotic Research & Development Partnership (GARDP), new treatments are being developed for the multidrug-resistant pathogens that cause sepsis. Germany has been a longstanding supporter of these efforts, helping to drive the development of urgently needed antibiotics while promoting responsible access and stewardship. But much more investment and political commitment will be needed if innovation is to keep pace with resistance. 

On Sunday, the theme for this year’s World Sepsis Day is “Invest in sepsis – save lives”. This is an important call to action, but it can only hold true if effective treatments remain available. So, investing in sepsis must mean more than improving awareness and diagnosis. It must also mean investing in the development of new and effective antibiotics. Without them, even the best diagnostics, the fastest response times and the most advanced healthcare systems will struggle to save lives. 

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Published in the STAT

By Peter Beyer, Deputy Executive Director, the Global Antibiotic Research & Development Partnership (GARDP) 

In the climate debate, low- and middle-income countries have often been blamed for rising emissions, while the vastly greater historical contribution of wealthy nations is treated as yesterday’s story.

Something similar has happened with the global antimicrobial resistance (AMR) crisis. Low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) have long been portrayed as the worst offenders of antibiotic overuse, with over-the-counter sales and weak regulation seen as one of the main reasons behind the rise and spread of drug-resistant infections. But a new study now challenges this narrative.

Research published in the Lancet Public Health found that overuse is actually concentrated in high-income settings, with these countries consuming the largest volumes of antibiotics used to treat drug-resistant infections. In contrast, many lower-income countries still lack access to these drugs, despite accounting for more than 80% of the estimated global need.

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Published in the The Telegraph

By Peter Beyer, Deputy Executive Director, the Global Antibiotic Research & Development Partnership (GARDP) 

For decades, the global pipeline for developing new antibiotics has worked in reverse – prioritising the countries least affected by bacterial infections, while leaving those with the greatest need waiting.

That is why the licencing in Thailand of zoliflodacin – a new antibiotic for gonorrhoea – matters so much. Coming just six months after its initial authorisation in the US, it marks a significant break from a long-entrenched tradition and is a big step forward for global health.

Multi-drug resistant gonorrhoea –- often called super-gonorrhoea –- first emerged in Asia but has since spread to Europe, with the UK reporting one of the most dangerous cases in 2018. The early licencing of a drug to tackle it in Asia will hopefully be felt all around the world.

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Why should a surge in sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in Europe be a concern across Africa or for people who don’t consider themselves to be at risk? Because it points to a bigger problem: the ease with which drug-resistant infections are now spreading, and not just in hospitals but within the community too.

The speed and scale at which people travel and interact in our interconnected world is increasingly helping to drive this, allowing drug-resistant pathogens to move rapidly through populations and across the world – including between high-income countries and low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where the burden is often greatest and surveillance more limited.

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Published in the MediaPlanet / The Guardian

By Dr Manica Balasegaram, Executive Director of the Global Antibiotic Research & Development Partnership (GARDP)

The same forces shaping today’s global insecurity — conflict, climate change and migration — are helping accelerate the spread of AMR. By 2050, the number of AMR-related deaths is expected to increase by as much as 70% by 2050. This can undermine health resilience, leaving us less equipped to face such threats.

In war zones like Ukraine, for example, drug-resistant infections are rising, driven by damaged infrastructure, limited treatment options and conditions allowing them to thrive. The same is true of rising temperatures, climate shocks and the scale and speed of international travel. This creates a dangerous feedback loop: insecurity fuels AMR, and AMR weakens our ability to respond to health crises. 

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Some experts believe that the first people to live long enough to reach their 200th birthday may already have been born because future advances in medicine and science will continue to extend life expectancy.

However, whether this proves true or not, it is likely to apply only to the few. For the majority of us, the trend is actually going in the opposite direction, and this may well continue thanks to the rise and spread of bacteria resistant to antibiotics.

The role antibiotics play in medicine cannot be overstated; they have turned once-fatal infections into highly treatable conditions and enabled safe surgery, cancer care and countless other medical advances.

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In 2014, India achieved what many had deemed impossible: it eliminated wild poliovirus. Not long before, it was home to nearly half the world’s unvaccinated children. Yet within a few years, the country mobilised its public-health machinery—door-to-door immunisation, relentless surveillance, rapid outbreak response, and logistics—on a scale and with a level of precision that left no stone unturned. The result was not fleeting but lasting: India became polio-free and has remained so ever since.

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13 February 2026

What do conflict, climate change, pandemics and migration all have in common? Each is recognised as a driver for instability, economic disruption and geopolitical tension, and each now features prominently at the Munich Security Conference. But there is another profound security threat linking them all, one that affects everyone on this planet and yet remains conspicuously absent from the agenda as world leaders gather in Munich this week: the rise and spread of drug-resistant infections.

When geopolitical tensions are stretched and global insecurity heightened, global health invariably suffers. It is not just war itself that cost lives, but also the threat of it. The climate of confrontation and fragmentation that surrounds them can result in resources diverted, cooperation weakened and the collapse of systems set up to protect people. Today, with global insecurity more volatile than at any point since the Cold War, that is exactly what we are now witnessing. And sitting squarely in the middle, at the fault line between health and security, is the escalating antimicrobial resistance (AMR) crisis.

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6 November 2026

Russia’s war in Ukraine may have triggered a new arms race in drone warfare, but it has another enduring and deadly legacy as well: its impact on drug-resistant infections. The conditions of conflict have led to a 10-fold increase in potentially lethal infections, pushing antimicrobial resistance (AMR) to a dangerous new tipping point where the growth of the most difficult to treat, multidrug-resistant infections is now beginning to outpace antibiotic development.

Not long ago, the opposite was the case. Prior to the second world war, and the advent of antibiotics, infections routinely killed more soldiers than combat itself. The US government and military then invested heavily in the discovery, production and global distribution of antibiotics, transforming penicillin from a laboratory curiosity into a drug produced on an industrial scale. Antibiotics became strategically vital — almost as essential as ammunition.

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14 October 2025

Much like the well-known climate threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius, the importance of critical limits in our environment have long been understood as key to help us avoid calamities. So, when we know the world is facing an escalating antimicrobial resistance (AMR) crisis, but there has been no definitive tipping point established, that leaves us on a potentially perilous path.

This week, the World Health Organization (WHO) published a report that suggests we may have now reached such a critical threshold.

Drawing on data from more than 100 countries, the report found that drug-resistant infections have risen significantly in recent years, representing a third of all infections in some regions.

These findings add to a growing body of evidence to suggest the most difficult-to-treat infections are beginning to outpace antibiotic development, either because the right antibiotics are not reaching the people who need them, or because they are not being developed in the first place. As a result, the number of AMR deaths is expected to increase sharply, by 70% by 2050.

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