15/12/25 (Agence Europe) – On Monday 15 December, the European Commission announced that it had committed €8.85 million to developing a breakthrough diagnostic device designed to help clinicians choose appropriate treatments for patients likely to require antibiotics. Antimicrobial resistance already causes thousands of deaths across Europe every year and costs healthcare systems around €11 billion a year. One of the main factors is the unnecessary or inappropriate use of antibiotics. Today, when patients consult their doctor about a suspected infection, diagnostic tests are often too slow or insufficiently accurate to immediately guide therapeutic decisions, because they are generally carried out in specialist laboratories. This can lead clinicians to prescribe broad-spectrum antibiotics or suboptimal treatments, which increases the cost of care and exacerbates antimicrobial resistance, the Commission argues. (LC)