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World leaders agreed Wednesday on steps to curb the rapid rise of drug resistance, the first global effort to stop the spread of dangerous superbugs that are fast becoming immune to many of the most critical medicines. Infectious disease doctors have long warned that overuse of antibiotics in people and in animals puts human health at risk by reducing the power of the drugs, some of modern medicine’s most prized jewels. The problem is global, because the bugs are mobile. (Tavernise, 9/21)

World leaders approved a wide-ranging declaration Wednesday aimed at addressing the rising number of drug-resistant infections — something the World Health Organization says has the potential to kill millions and undermine the global economy, likening it to "a slow-motion tsunami." The declaration recognizes the size of the problem and encourages countries to develop plans to cut back on antibiotic use, make better use of vaccines and fund development of new drugs to combat antimicrobial resistance (AMR), which currently claims the lives of an estimated 700,000 people each year and is expected to rise sharply. (9/21)

Meeting under the umbrella of the United Nations General Assembly, international leaders on Wednesday launched new efforts to stem the rising tide of antimicrobial resistance, which has blunted the effectiveness of existing medications in treating infectious diseases.Heads of state and country delegates gathered at a U.N. meeting on the subject vowed to increase international coordination and funding aimed at monitoring the emergence of antimicrobial resistance and reducing the misuse of antimicrobial agents in human and veterinary health and agriculture. (Healy, 9/21)

U.S. health officials have identified a cluster of gonorrhea infections that show sharply increased resistance to the last effective treatment available for the country's second most commonly reported infectious disease. The findings from a cluster of Hawaii cases, presented Wednesday at a conference on prevention of sexually transmitted diseases, represent the first cluster of cases in the United States that have shown such decreased susceptibility to the double-antibiotic combination used when other drugs have failed. (Sun, 9/21)

Experts have been worried for a while that time is running out for the last working cures for gonorrhea infections. On Wednesday, some revealed there may be even less time left on the clock than had been previously thought. Scientists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Hawaii’s department of health reported a cluster of cases of gonorrhea in that state in which the Neisseria gonorrhoeae bacteria showed high-level resistance to one of the drugs, azithromycin, as well as reduced susceptibility to the second drug, ceftriaxone. (Branswell, 9/21)