Antibiotic usage by surveillance category

Total defined daily doses of AWaRe category: Access used per 1000 inhabitants per day. Access antibiotics have activity against a wide range of common pathogens and show lower resistance potential than antibiotics in the other groups. Total defined daily doses of AWaRe category: Watch used per 1000 inhabitants per day. Watch antibiotic have higher resistance potential and include most of the highest priority agents among the Critically Important Antimicrobials for Human Medicine and/or antibiotics that are at relatively high risk of bacterial resistance. Total defined daily doses of AWaRe category: Reserve used per 1000 inhabitants per day. Reserve antibiotics should be reserved for treatment of confirmed or suspected infections due to multi-drug-resistant organisms. Reserve group antibiotics should be treated as “last resort” options. Total defined daily doses of AWaRe category: Not classified/recommended used per 1000 inhabitants per day. The use of the Not classified/Not recommended antibiotics is not evidence-based, nor recommended in high-quality international guidelines. WHO does not recommend the use of these antibiotics in clinical practice.

Cite as: WHO Global Antimicrobial Resistance and Use Surveillance System (GLASS) (2025) – processed by Our World in Data. “Access antibiotics” [dataset]. WHO Global Antimicrobial Resistance and Use Surveillance System (GLASS), “WHO GLASS – Global Antimicrobial Use data” [original data].