Committee’s assessment |
Politically important |
Not cleared from scrutiny; further information requested; drawn to the attention of the Health Committee |
|
Document details |
Communication from the Commission—A European One Health Action Plan against Antimicrobial Resistance |
Legal base |
— |
Department |
Health |
Document Number |
(38929), 11128/17 + ADD 1, COM(17) 339 |
10.1The excessive or inappropriate use of antimicrobials, such as antibiotics, has caused bacteria to become increasingly resistant to those antimicrobials to which they were previously susceptible. Rising drug resistance is already considered to be leading to a resurgence of infections and increased fatalities. If not addressed, says the Government, it will also make medical procedures such as surgery and chemotherapy prohibitively dangerous.
10.2This antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is recognised as a challenge requiring action nationally, regionally and globally. One estimate126 suggests that around 700 000 people die every year globally as a result of AMR (25 000 in the EU),127 with numbers potentially increasing to ten million per year by 2050.
10.3EU Member States called in 2016 for a new and comprehensive EU AMR Action Plan based on the One Health approach. This approach takes into account both human and animal health as well as the environment.
10.4The Commission’s Action Plan is based on three main strands:
10.5Specific actions include:
10.6The Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Health (Lord O’Shaughnessy) indicates that the proposed actions are in line with the UK AMR Strategy 2013–18 and the range of international frameworks, ambitions and commitments. The Minister notes that the new implications for domestic policy are limited to future amendments to relevant EU legislation, although the Minister judges it unlikely that such changes would be made before the UK has left the EU.
10.7On the UK’s withdrawal from the EU, the Minister observes that there are significant benefits to the UK from the EU continuing to prioritise action on AMR given the global nature of AMR and the EU’s geographic proximity. He says that AMR will be part of much wider discussions on topics such as life sciences, science, innovation and research that the UK will be taking forward with the EU as part of the EU Exit negotiations.
10.8One of the actions proposed by the Commission is to improve the coordination of Member States’ One Health responses to AMR, not least in the context of the recently established AMR One Health network. This consists of government experts from the human health, animal health and environmental sectors as well as the EU scientific agencies working in the human and animal health sectors. In relation to this action point, we would welcome the following information from the Government:
10.9We note that the UK considers it to be in the UK’s interest for the EU to continue its efforts to tackle AMR, not least because of the EU’s geographic proximity. As the Minister notes, the proposed actions include review of relevant EU legislation. The Minister observes that it is unlikely that any legislative changes would be in force by the time of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU. Nevertheless, will the Government take note of, and potentially mirror, any changes to relevant EU legislation both to facilitate continued trade on a safe and One Health basis and to ensure that the UK’s AMR approach does not fall behind the EU’s approach?
10.10The Commission’s Action Plan touches on relationships with third countries, noting that AMR-related provisions are systematically included in all new Free Trade Agreements. Looking forward, the Commission suggests that concessions made to EU trading partners could be linked with compliance with specific EU AMR policy objectives. What is the Government’s view of the Commission’s suggestion, both as an EU Member State and as a future third country in the position of seeking to be an EU trading partner?
10.11Finally, the Minister notes that AMR will be part of much wider discussions on topics such as life sciences, science, innovation and research that the UK will be taking forward with the EU27 as part of the exit negotiations. We assume that, in order to establish a UK AMR negotiating position, some form of risk assessment has been undertaken. What are the potential opportunities and risks for the UK’s AMR strategy arising from Brexit?
10.12We consider that the issues arising from this Report will be of interest to the Health Committee in particular and we therefore draw the Report to the attention of that Committee. We retain the document under scrutiny and would welcome a response within one month.
Communication from the Commission—A European One Health Action Plan against Antimicrobial Resistance: (38929), 11128/17 + ADD 1, COM(17) 339.
10.13Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) is the ability of a microbe to resist the effects of medication previously used to treat the associated infection. The EU Action Plan on AMR builds on the first EU AMR Action Plan which ran from 2011 to 2016. The new plan draws on the recommendations of an independent external evaluation and views of stakeholders gathered through a public consultation which ran from January to April 2017. The new plan includes more than 75 actions across three main pillars:
10.14The Minister describes the scale of the issue in the following terms
“In addition to being a future international health threat, AMR is already having a large impact today—one estimate suggests that around 700 000 people die every year globally as a result of this problem. Without significant action now it is estimated that these numbers will greatly increase to 10 million deaths per year by 2050. The economic cost would also be very large. The World Bank warns that, by 2050, drug-resistant infections could cause global economic damage on a par with the 2008 financial crisis. The impact on GDP by 2050 is of a similar scale to previous estimates for the cumulative cost to the world economy of 100 trillion USD.”
10.15The Minister considers the actions and views described in the Action Plan to be in line with the UK AMR Strategy 2013–2018 and existing international frameworks, ambitions and commitments, which are currently being implemented. He says that the implications for current UK domestic AMR policy are limited to the possibility of future technical amendments being made to existing EU implementing legislation (for example on monitoring AMR in zoonotic and commensal bacteria in farm animals and food, and on reporting communicable diseases in humans). Noting that no timetable has been set for any such changes, the Minister considers it unlikely that they would be made before the UK’s withdrawal from the EU.
10.16On the UK’s withdrawal from the EU, the Minister says:
“There are significant benefits to the UK from the EU continuing to prioritise action on AMR, given the global nature of the AMR problem and geographic relationship to the UK. AMR will be part of much wider discussions on topics such as life sciences, science, innovation and research that the UK will be taking forward with the EU27 as part of the EU Exit negotiations.”
None.
1 December 2017