How big is 100 trillion? It’s hard to get your head around massive numbers like these, but let me try to help…
A pile 100 trillion sheets of paper would stretch to the moon and back, almost half a million times. Still a bit too abstract?
$100 trillion is equivalent to the entire GDP of the US for almost six years. It is also the estimated cost to the global economy by 2050 unless we dramatically change the way we tackle antibiotic resistance, according to the economist Jim O’Neill.
The ex-Goldman Sachs chief economist believes that antimicrobial resistance poses a more certain threat than climate change and could lead to 10 million extra deaths per year if left unchecked. This is considerably more than current deaths due to all cancers.
The report was published today and models examined three bacteria – K pneumoniae, E coli and S aureus – from the seven already highlighted by the World Health Organisation, as showing worrying levels of resistance. It also examined several other diseases for which resistance is a concern – such as HIV, malaria and tuberculosis.
No country is immune from the threat but for some, the outlook is especially bleak. India and China, could see 2 million and 1 million deaths due to antimicrobial resistance a year respectively by 2050. Africa as a continent “will suffer greatly”, the report warns.
One of the key issues, as I have blogged about before, lies in the economic model of drug discovery. Understandably drug companies are looking for a return on investment – the last thing they want is to pump resources into developing a drug that is kept as a last resort rather than actively and widely used.
New antibiotic alternatives show a great deal of promise but without a change to this fundamental economic model, we may all start to become all too familiar with the number, 100 trillion!
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