Infectious diseases around the world are increasingly becoming untreatable with standard antibiotics, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported.

“In 2023, one in six laboratory-confirmed cases of common bacterial infections globally showed resistance to antibiotic treatment,” the WHO said in a press release.

According to the organization’s new report, from 2018 to 2023 more than 40% of the tracked “pathogen–antibiotic” combinations showed increased resistance, whereas on average their share typically grows by only 5–15% per year. The highest rates were recorded in countries of Southeast Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean, where one-third of infections were resistant to antibiotics. In contrast, in Africa only about one in five infection cases did not respond to such treatment.