2026-08-12 · percent of antibiotic use (global estimate)
Most antibiotics go to farm animals
Medical use is critical — agricultural use is larger by volume in many countries.
Drug-resistant infections were associated with more than 4.7 million deaths worldwide in 2021 — and most antibiotics aren't going to patients. An estimated 73% of global antibiotic use goes to livestock, with 27% for human medicine, so how farm animals are dosed helps decide how long these drugs keep working.
1 cell = 0.1 percent of antibiotic use (global estimate) (0.1% of antibiotic consumption) · 1,000 cells
Context
The 73/27 split reflects a WHO and UN FAO estimate of global antimicrobial use. WHO's July 2026 fact sheet names misuse and overuse of antimicrobials in people, animals and plants as a main driver of resistance, and its Global Action Plan on AMR (2026–2036) targets reduced antimicrobial use in agrifood systems.
Resistance is already widespread: one in six laboratory-confirmed bacterial infections worldwide were resistant to antibiotics in 2023, and between 2018 and 2023 resistance rose in over 40% of monitored pathogen–antibiotic combinations. Levels are highest in WHO's South-East Asia and Eastern Mediterranean regions, where one in three reported infections were resistant.
The projected bill is steep: treating resistant bacterial infections alone is predicted to cost US$412 billion annually up to 2035, with a further US$443 billion per year in productivity losses. WHO's plan also backs the 2024 UN target of cutting bacterial AMR deaths by 10% by 2030.
WHO / UN FAO antimicrobial use split estimate.
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