The World Health Organisation warned that drug resistance fuelled partly by a misuse of antibiotics is killing hundreds of thousands of people a year and that urgent action was needed on the issue.

“We’re really seeing an accelerated evolution in the spread of this problem and the bottomline is that the problem is outpacing the solutions,” said Keiji Fukuda, WHO assistant director general.

Health experts noted that few countries across the world have plans to deal with the issue, which is ballooning amid an increased consumption of antibiotics.

“In the vast majority of the countries – there are no plans, no budgets, there are no accountability lines for this extremely serious problem,” said Mario Raviglione, who heads the WHO’s campaign against tuberculosis.

“Surveillance systems are weak, they are absent in many places,” he noted, adding that the quality of antibiotics is questionable in some of these countries.