American Enterprise Institute’s “AEIdeas”: G20 and antibiotic resistance
AEI Visiting Scholar Roger Bate highlights draft text from a call to action against antimicrobial resistance (AMR) expected to be adopted at this weekend’s G20 meeting. He writes, “Perhaps most heartening is the call for ‘quality’ antimicrobials. The tendency of most governments in emerging markets is to buy the cheapest products. It will be interesting and important to see if G20 nations actually follow their rhetoric” (7/6).

Médecins Sans Frontières: MSF urges G20 to take action on health issues
“Ahead of the G20 Summit in Hamburg, where global health is on the agenda for the first time, the international medical humanitarian organization Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) called on G20 leaders to follow through on the declaration made by their health ministers in late May. … MSF asks the G20 leaders to take action on the following issues: Attacks on medical facilities: turn U.N. Security Resolution 2286 into concrete actions … TB and drug-resistant infections: investing in research and development (R&D), and making treatments affordable for all people … Emergency preparedness and response…” (7/6).

Undark: Needed at the G20 Summit: A Global Assault on Drug-Resistant TB
Peter Piot, director of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, writes, “With broad international support, the G20 has a key opportunity to agree on a mechanism to develop new antibiotics to tackle drug-resistant infections, overcoming present market failures and supercharging the antibiotics pipeline. … World leaders should specifically include TB in their G20 outcome document this weekend. … Without global action, we will hurtle toward a post-antibiotic era. New drugs are needed for now and for the future” (7/6).

Wellcome: G20 summit: act now in the fight against epidemics
“The G20 summit starts today in Hamburg. As world leaders sit down for talks, Jeremy Farrar, Wellcome’s director, and Paul Stoffels, chief scientific officer of Johnson & Johnson, urge them to keep up the momentum in tackling infectious disease outbreaks.” They write, “What we need now is the continued political commitment to the policies and investments needed to enable CEPI and other incentive models that encourage research and development. … Working together, we can develop the tools to secure and advance human health, bolster economies, and give the world reason to truly celebrate our humanity and our ingenuity” (7/7).