WHO’s updated Bacterial Priority Pathogens List (BPPL) 2024

WHO’s updated Bacterial Priority Pathogens List (BPPL) 2024

Context:

Recently, the WHO released its updated Bacterial Priority Pathogens List (BPPL) 2024 which highlights 15 families of antibiotic-resistant bacteria grouped into critical, high and medium categories for prioritization.

• The list provides guidance on the development of new and necessary treatments to stop the spread of antimicrobial resistance (AMR)

Relevance:
GS-2 (Health)

What is AMR?

• Antimicrobial resistance occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites no longer respond to medicines, making people sicker and increasing the risk of disease spread, illness and deaths.
• Increasing AMR is attributed to the misuse and overuse of antimicrobials.
• The updated BPPL incorporates new evidence and expert insights to guide research and development (R&D) for new antibiotics and promote international coordination to foster innovation.
• The updated Bacterial Priority Pathogens List (BPPL) has categorized the antibiotic-resistant bacteria into critical, high and medium.

WHO BPPL 2024:

Critical priority:

• Acinetobacter baumannii, carbapenem-resistant;
• Enterobacterales, third-generation cephalosporin-resistant; and
• Enterobacterales, carbapenem-resistant;
• Mycobacterium tuberculosis, rifampicin-resistant (included after an independent analysis with parallel tailored criteria, and subsequent application of an adapted multi-criteria decision analysis matrix).

High priority:

• Salmonella Typhi.
• Shigella spp.
• Enterococcus faecium
• Pseudomonas aeruginosa
• Non-typhoidal Salmonella
• Neisseria gonorrhoeae
• Staphylococcus aureus, methicillin-resistant

Medium priority:

• Group A streptococci, macrolide-resistant
• Streptococcus pneumoniae, macrolide-resistant
• Haemophilus influenzae, ampicillin-resistant
• Group B streptococci, penicillin-resistant