Congress of the European Society of
Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases
This joint high-level AMR event co-hosted by ESCMID and the Global Leaders Group on Antimicrobial Resistance (GLG), CARB-X, LifeArc, the Novonordisk Foundation and the Gates Foundation took place on Friday, 17 April 2026 onsite at ESCMID Global 2026 in Munich, Germany. With the Independent Panel for Evidence for Action against AMR (IPEA) in the making, it is important to move now from commitments into action. Connecting science and policy has never been more important and this meeting aims to bridge that gap.
This year's programme went further than ever. Alongside the high-level plenary session, the forum featured two dedicated working groups on modelling & economics and diagnostics & cost-effectiveness - structured as active, participatory discussions where your voice and input matter. The day closed with a networking reception open to all attendees, offering the opportunity to continue the conversation in a more informal setting.
Here is presented a summarised version, you can read the full report from John Rex here.
ESCMID Global once again held an afternoon of sessions focused on the intersection of AMR-related science and policy. With an overall theme of “Smart policies for lean times,” the well-attended afternoon comprised a pair of workshops, a plenary session, and a networking reception
The afternoon’s parallel workshops were evidence-focused:
After the workshops, the plenary (opened by Robert Skov and then chaired by Jon Friedland) featured:
Naomi Rupasinghe’s keynote focused on the ways that she has been working from the World Bank to create workable investment opportunities in AMR. Her talk showed the path forward in AMR with an example from the vaccine world where the IFFIm (International Finance Facility for Immunisation) leveraged long-term pledges from 11 sovereign governments to raise $6.2b from the capital markets and immunise 233m children.
WHO’s Benedetta Allegranzi summarised the progress made in developing and implementing best practices for IPC. In 2023, there was the release of the WHO’s Global Strategy on IPC and then in 2025 the release of a practical guide to development and implementation of national action plans for infection prevention and control.
Padmini Srikantiah, Deputy Director at the Gates Foundation, epxlored the impact of vaccines. She noted that existing vaccines alone would annually avert 106k deaths, 9.1m DALYs, US$861m in hospital costs, and US$5.9b in productivity losses. She also highlighted the durability of vaccines showing that only a few of the vaccines end with a documented resistance-related failure in humans and even then, it takes many years for resistance to develop to vaccines as compared to often relatively prompt resistance to the drugs.
Koen Pouwels, reviewed his research on the value of adjusting prescribing patterns so that usage in the Access category of the WHO AWaRe (Access-Watch-Reserve) antibiotic ranking hits the UNGA HLM-AMR target of ~70%. Based on modelling that grouped regions by socio-demographic factors and infection patterns, substantial savings were possible.
Javier Yugueros-Marcos (World Organisation for Animal Health) reminded us that AMR is already causing $17b in annual GDP losses in livestock production with the potential for the cost to rise to $159b annually by 2050 if no action is taken. Building on a classic concept with his title “A gram of prevention or a kilo of cure,” he showed the potential for modern interventions to have a huge impact.
Finally, WHO’s Jean Pierre Nyemazi closed the session by first reviewing the political work that brought us to the 2024 UNGA HLM on AMR followed by a discussion of what is coming for IPEA (the Independent Panel on Evidence for Action as well as updates to the Global Action Plan (GAP) on AMR.
Two parallel workshops will lead into the plenary session. Both are open to all ESCMID Global participants and designed to foster interactive, solution-oriented discussions.
This workshop will examine how modelling and economic analysis can guide effective AMR policy decisions within a One Health context.
The session will be highly interactive and structured around six short interventions by invited discussants, followed by open discussion with all participants.
Chairs: Mike Sharland (City St George's, University of London, UK), Ben Cooper (University of Oxford, Oxford, UK)
Speakers:
Understanding the global drivers of AMR
Lulla Opatowski (Institut Pasteur, Paris, France)
Understanding transmission pathways of AMR and mechanisms driving emergence and cross-sectoral spread
Patrick Musicha (Malawi Liverpool Wellcome Programme, Blantyre, Malawi)
Modelling the potential impact of AMR interventions
Joseph Lewnard (University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, USA)
TBA
Gwen Knight (The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, UK)
Cost-effectiveness/cost-benefit of prevention strategies to mitigate AMR
Shiela Marie Selisana (Health Intervention and Technology Assessment Program foundation (HITAP), Nonthaburi, Thailand)
Cost-effectiveness/cost-benefit of treatment strategies to mitigate AMR
Yiying Cai (Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore, Singapore)
FAO’s forthcoming report on the economic cost of AMR: reflections on data, methods, and concepts emerging from the peer-review process.
Alejandro Acosta (FAO, Rome, Italy)
Diagnostics are central to effective AMR mitigation, enabling early detection, targeted treatment, and rational antibiotic use. However, challenges persist across development, evaluation, reimbursement, and implementation - particularly regarding real-world cost-effectiveness, system-level integration, and equitable access.
This workshop will identify key diagnostic needs, map barriers along the product development and implementation pathway, and propose an evidence-based framework to guide innovation.
The discussion will highlight economic, clinical, and contextual considerations across diverse healthcare settings.
Following a brief introduction, the session will feature six short interventions by invited discussants, followed by an open discussion.
Chairs: Holger Rohde (UK Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany), Betsy Wonderly Trainor (CARB-X, Boston, USA)
Speakers:
Diagnostics in context: innovation, adaptation, and barriers to uptake
Till Bachmann (University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom)
Trials that matter: evidence-driven diagnostics for health systems
Julia Bielicki (University Children's Hospital Basel, Basel, Switzerland)
The social lives of POCT
Clare Chandler (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK)
Costing the global good of diagnostics
Chantal Morel (University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland)
Affordable and accessible solutions - partnerships and challenges!
Ghada Zoubiane (LifeArc, London, UK)
The session takes place in Hall ICM 1 and will be opened by Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, and Hon. Minister Mekdes Daba, GLG and Robert Skov (ESCMID)
Chair: Robert Skov (ESCMID President, Copenhagen, Denmark)
Keynote lecture:
How AMR policy action can be strengthened under financial and operational constraints—emphasising opportunities to achieve more with limited resources.
AMR policy action under pressure: doing more with less
Naomi Rupasinghe (World Bank, Washington, USA)
This will be followed by four thematic inputs and an engaging panel discussion covering:
Chair: Jon S. Friedland (City St George’s, University of London, London, UK)
1. Efficient and effective IPC
Benedetta Allegranzi (WHO Regional Office for The Eastern Mediterranean, Cairo, Egypt)
2. Prevention pays off: vaccination policies for AMR
Padmini Srikantiah (Gates Foundation, Seattle, USA)
3. Global AWaRe targets and national cost savings
Koen Pouwels (University of Oxford, Oxford, UK)
4. A gram of prevention or a kilo of cure?
Javier Yugueros-Marcos (World Organisation for Animal Health, Paris, France)
A panel discussion will focus on prioritising cost-effective interventions, aligning national policies with global commitments, and exploring mechanisms for cross-sectoral funding. We invite the audience to join the conversation and share their questions and thoughts on the topic. Use this unique opportunity to interact with the panel!
Conclusion
Closing remarks will be delivered by Jean Pierre Nyemazi (WHO, Geneva, Switzerland)
