If drug-resistant infections in people and animals are allowed to spread unchecked, some 28 million people will fall into poverty by 2050, and a century of progress in health will be reversed, the World Bank said on Monday. "We cannot afford to lose the gains in the last century brought about by the antibiotic era," Tim Evans, the World Bank's senior director for health, nutrition and population, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. "By any measure, the cost of inaction on antimicrobial resistance is too great, it needs to be addressed urgently and resolutely," he said. "Investments are urgently needed to establish basic veterinary public health capacities in developing countries," Evans said. The World Bank estimates that an investment of some $9 billion US a year is needed in veterinary and human health to tackle the issue.

Source: CBC News September 19, 2016 19:07 UTC