ANTIMICROBIAL resistance is a multifaceted growing global health threat. To counter it, the WHO has launched a number of initiatives over the last decade, one of which involves the setting up of a Global Antimicrobial Resistance and Use Surveillance System to generate and strengthen evidence on AMR via data collection and analysis. Since 2016, a growing number of member states have enrolled in the system and reported data to GLASS.

The data is consolidated into an annualised GLASS report. Its latest edition came out recently. The 2025 report is based on 23 million bacteriologically confirmed infections reported by 104 countries. The report monitors the eight most common bacterial pathogens responsible for bloodstream, gastrointestinal, urinary tract and urogenital gonorrhoea infections. The report generates estimates for regional, global and national AMR levels to help evidence-based policy formulation. Besides generating estimates, the report assesses the state of national AMR surveillance coverage in terms of incremental improvement or regression.

It finds that resistance to essential antibiotics is increasing and is mal-distributed region-wise with low- and middle-income counties showing higher levels of resistance. This is linked to........

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