PRESS RELEASE : The UK is working with partners around the world to prevent global health threats like AMR – UK statement at the UN General Assembly [September 2024]

The press release issued by the Foreign Office on 26 September 2024.

Statement by the Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, at the UN General Assembly High-Level Meeting on antimicrobial resistance.

The world faces tremendous challenges, so many of which are connected. Connected challenges require of course connected solutions.

And the new UK government is determined to renew relationships with allies, especially in the Global South, and to modernise our approach to development, rooted in a spirit of genuine partnership.

We cannot hope to achieve any of our development goals without being able to prevent global health threats like AMR which, unless we act, will take almost 40 million lives by 2050.

That is what we learnt from COVID, and we’re determined to play our role in addressing the lessons of the last pandemic.

Central to that will be tackling the injustice of inequitable access.

New UK-funded data shows that 92 million lives – mainly of course in Global South countries – will be lost by 2050 due to a lack of access to both health care and to antibiotics.

This is intolerable and it must not continue.

This ambitious Political Declaration shows that we can achieve so much when we work together for the common good.

To those who say that the world is too divided to agree on anything meaningful – we have shown how wrong they are.

But this is only the beginning. We must now swiftly translate today’s commitments to strong collective action on the ground in the service of our fellow citizens

The UK is working with partners around the world, including through our existing Fleming Fund network in low- and middle-income countries.

And we are now working to improve access to antimicrobial drugs in Africa, to strengthen AMR capabilities in the Caribbean, and to support a new independent science panel that has the strongest possible buy-in from the countries of the Global South and which I hope will be located in the Global South.

So let us get to work. Let us, together, ensure that future generations, no matter where they are born, look back at this moment as the time we collectively resolved to secure this incredible life-saving gift for all humanity.