Imagine a hospital knowing that its roof is leaking, having a written plan to fix it, and even knowing exactly what materials and workers are needed, but never working out how much the repairs will cost or where the money will come from. That is, in simple terms, part of the problem facing antimicrobial resistance (AMR) efforts across Asia and the Pacific.
AMR happens when germs such as bacteria stop responding to medicines that previously killed them or stopped their growth. It can make ordinary infections much harder, and sometimes impossible, to treat. A new analysis highlighted by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 5 October 2026 looked at 28 countries across Asia and the Pacific. Almost all 27 countries had a national plan for tackling AMR, that sounds encouraging, and the newer plans are becoming more detailed, with clearer targets and better ways to measure progress. But there is a major gap between having a plan and being able to carry it out.
WHO found that 49% of countries with an AMR plan had not worked out its full cost. Only eight countries reported that their AMR activities were funded entirely from domestic sources. In 15 countries, less than 30% of AMR funding came from within the country. This means that, for many of these countries, there is no clear budget for putting their plans into action, and many depend heavily on funding from outside their own countries. As a result, some of these plans may be delayed, scaled back, or never fully implemented. There is also a sustainability problem. If a large share of the funding comes from external donors, a country may struggle to maintain these programmes if that funding decreases or ends. And this matters because drug-resistant infections do not wait for funding cycles. If prevention, testing, and appropriate treatment are not maintained, resistant infections can continue to spread, making them harder and more expensive to treat.
AMR requires more than telling people to “use antibiotics responsibly.” Hospitals need functioning laboratories to identify infections. Health facilities need clean water, sanitation and infection control systems. Health workers need appropriate medicines and prescribing guidance. Governments need surveillance systems to see where resistance is spreading. The scale is also difficult to ignore. WHO estimates that 2.6 million deaths in the Asia Pacific region were associated with AMR in 2019. More than 680,000 of those deaths were directly attributable to resistance.
Put differently, AMR is not just a problem for doctors or hospitals. It is a problem with the systems that surround healthcare. A person with an infection does not experience “AMR funding gaps.” They experience a medicine that no longer works, a laboratory that cannot identify the infection quickly enough, or a health system struggling to prevent the infection from spreading. So, writing the plan is progress, but funding the plan is what turns it into protection.
