2026-10-07 · 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.
Bacterial antimicrobial resistance was associated with more than 4.7 million deaths globally in 2021, and by 2023 one in six laboratory-confirmed bacterial infections no longer responded to antibiotics. One main driver is how antibiotics are used: a 2026 WHO/FAO split estimate puts 73% of global antibiotic use in livestock and 27% in human medicine.
1 cell = 0.1 percent of antibiotic use (global estimate) (0.1% of antibiotic consumption) · 1,000 cells
Context
The split matters because resistance ignores borders: WHO notes that AMR affects all countries regardless of income and spreads across them. Its Global action plan on antimicrobial resistance 2026–2036 explicitly aims to reduce antimicrobial use in agrifood systems alongside human health, working with the FAO, UNEP and the World Organisation for Animal Health in a One Health approach.
The economic stakes are also large: with current levels of action, the cost of treating resistant bacterial infections alone is predicted to reach US$412 billion annually up to 2035, with an additional US$443 billion per year in productivity losses.
Human medicine has its own targets: access antibiotics — recommended first-choice treatments — made up only about 53% of global human antibiotic use in 2022, short of the 70% goal for 2030, and resistance rose in over 40% of monitored pathogen-antibiotic combinations between 2018 and 2023.
WHO / UN FAO antimicrobial use split estimate.
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