The World Health Organization has issued consecutive warnings in mid-October 2025 about two mounting global health crises—one in neurological diseases and the other in antimicrobial resistance—calling for urgent, coordinated action to forestall escalating loss of life.
On October 14, WHO revealed that 11 million deaths annually are attributable to neurological disorders worldwide, underscoring the critical need to expand access to neurological care, early diagnosis, and treatment globally.
This alert followed a stark report on October 13 warning of skyrocketing antibiotic resistance. The WHO’s Global Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance System (GLASS) found that in 2023, one in six laboratory-confirmed bacterial infections was resistant to treatment.
Between 2018 and 2023, more than 40 percent of monitored pathogen-antibiotic combinations displayed increasing resistance, with annual rises of 5–15 percent. Resistance is particularly acute in South-East Asia, the Eastern Mediterranean, and parts of Africa, where infections resistant to first-line antibiotics now exceed 70 percent in some settings.
WHO officials warned that this trend threatens to undermine decades of medical progress. Essential antibiotics such as cephalosporins, carbapenems, and fluoroquinolones are losing efficacy against key pathogens like E. coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, and Acinetobacter. Organization+3
The neurological and AMR crises share a common thread: both require stronger health systems, investment in research, expanded surveillance, and equitable access to care. WHO experts argue that health systems must be fortified not only to treat present illnesses but also to anticipate and prevent future crises.
Several studies bolster the urgency: for example, projections suggest that by 2050 antimicrobial resistance could cause as many as 10 million deaths per year, far outpacing many chronic diseases.
Moreover, in 2019 alone, an estimated 1.27 million deaths were directly attributed to drug-resistant infections, with nearly 5 million associated deaths overall. Scholars note that misuse of antibiotics in humans, livestock, and agriculture accelerates this crisis, and that lack of access to quality antibiotics in low- and middle-income countries compounds the problem.
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