India faces world's highest rate of dangerous drug-resistant infections

A major international study has found that more than 80 percent of Indian patients carry multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs) – or disease causing deadly pathogens that don't respond to most available antibiotics – the highest rate recorded anywhere in the world.

These “superbugs” do not respond to many commonly used antibiotics, making infections harder and more expensive to treat. The findings highlight a growing antibiotic resistance crisis in India.

The research, published in The Lancet eClinical Medicine and released at the start of the WHO’s World Antimicrobial Resistance Awareness Week, examined over 1,200 patients from India, Italy, the Netherlands, and the US who underwent the same common endoscopic procedure.

India showed the most alarming results: 83 % of patients carried drug-resistant bacteria, compared with 31.5 % in Italy, 20.1 % in the US, and 10.8 % in the Netherlands.

The fresh findings come on the back of another Lancet report which had shown that nearly one million annual cases in Indian hospitals involved bacteria resistant to carbapenem, a critical last-resort antibiotic, signalling a deepening public health crisis.

More recently, a report by the World Health Organisation had shown that in 2023, one in every six bacterial infections globally was resistant to antibiotics—and India was among the biggest contributors to this alarming pattern of antimicrobial resistance (AMR).

According to a global report by the GRAM (Global Research on Antimicrobial Resistance) Project, between 3 lakh and 10.4



lakh deaths in India in 2019 – the highest globally – were linked to bacterial AMR.

Among Indian patients, 70 percent had bacteria that resist widely used antibiotics, and nearly 24 percent carried bacteria that withstand even last-resort drugs. Some of these dangerous organisms were rarely or almost never seen in the US and the Netherlands.

Patients with chronic lung disease, heart failure, frequent hospital visits, or recent penicillin use were found to be at higher risk. Doctors say these resistant infections force hospitals to rely on stronger, more toxic medicines and often lead to longer treatment, complications, and significantly higher medical costs.

For India, the situation is especially dire. An estimated 58,000 newborns die each year from antibiotic-resistant infections, and untreatable bacteria are already common in intensive care units and cancer hospitals. Researchers warn that the country is now facing a true public health emergency.

“The high and variable prevalence of MDRO carriage underscores the need for targeted, region-specific infection preventive strategies,” noted the study authors, which included senior doctors from AIG hospital in Hyderabad.

Infectious disease specialists now stress that both healthcare professionals and the public must use antibiotics more responsibly to slow the spread of resistance.

They also advise stricter control over the sale of prescription-only drugs, routine screening for high-risk patients, and in some cases the use of single-use medical devices to prevent transmission.