Economic Barriers to Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing as a Structural Contributor to Antimicrobial Resistance in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Narrative Review

Background

Bacterial antimicrobial resistance (AMR) was directly responsible for an estimated 1.27 million deaths in 2019, with the burden. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) is essential for guiding targeted therapy and stewardship, yet the specific economic mechanisms that prevent its scale-up in low-resource settings remain poorly understood and inadequately addressed in policy.