The Centre for Cellular and Molecular Platforms (C-CAMP) has partnered with the UK Department of Health and Social Care’s Global Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Innovation Fund to nurture and fund innovations for antimicrobial resistance in the environment.
Up to £5.1 million (approximating around ₹500 million or ₹50 crore+) funding has been committed over three years by the UK’s Global AMR Innovation Fund (GAMRIF).
This partnership between GAMRIF and C-CAMP will support the development of innovative solutions addressing AMR in the environment for the benefit of low- and middle-income countries where the burden of drug resistance is the highest.
Fostering innovations
“C-CAMP is committed to fostering innovations addressing AMR across humans, agriculture and the environment. With our decade-long work in this area, we are confident of harnessing the most exciting AMR innovation science happening in India and across the globe into solutions to tackle the challenge, especially the often-neglected issue of environmental AMR that threatens low- and middle-income countries,” Dr. Taslimarif Saiyed, Director-CEO, C-CAMP said.
The GRAM Report, published in the Lancet in 2019, estimates that 1.3 million people each year die due to AMR, with the highest mortality rates in low- and middle-income countries, primarily in Asia and Africa.
By 2050, deaths associated with AMR are projected to rise to a staggering 10 million each year, surpassing the global death toll of malaria and comparable to that of cancer.
Antimicrobial misuse
The impacts of climate change, antimicrobial misuse and overuse across the food and agriculture industries and antimicrobial pollution in the environment will all contribute to this rise in AMR-related deaths. Despite the fact that LMICs bear a disproportionately higher global burden of AMR, the funding to foster innovative solutions best suited for the region has been acutely low.
The GAMRIF C-CAMP partnership will kick off shortly with an AMR Challenge under the umbrella of IAIH that will invite applications from innovators and startups for funding and ecosystem support to enable scale-up of technology, production, adoption and impact. The call for applications is expected to open in August 2024.
