(CNN) At least 1.27 million people died in 2019 due to drug-resistant bacterial infections, according to a new study on the global burden of antimicrobial resistance. The study, published Wednesday in the journal The Lancet, suggests that if all drug-resistant bacterial infections had not occurred that year, 4.95 million deaths could have been prevented in 2019, and if all drug-resistant bacterial infections were replaced by infections that could have been adequately treated, 1.27 million lives could have been saved. Antimicrobial resistance, or AMR, is when bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites become resistant to the drugs typically used to treat the infections they cause. "By any metric, bacterial AMR is a leading global health issue," an international team of researchers wrote in the study, adding that resistance appears to be a leading cause of death, ahead of both HIV and malaria. Their analyses included 471 million individual records, and they produced estimates for 204 countries and territories.

Source: CNN January 20, 2022 16:43 UTC