Skip to content

WHO Bacterial Priority Pathogens (2024)

The World Health Organization publishes a periodic priority list of antibiotic-resistant bacteria to guide research, surveillance, and stewardship efforts. QualiBact provides species-level genome assembly QC thresholds for most of the species named below — click through to see the recommended thresholds.

Source: World Health Organization. WHO Bacterial Priority Pathogens List, 2024.

Download QC thresholds (WHO 2024 list, CSV)4-bound thresholds (FAIL + WARN) for every species on this list, grouped by tier.

Critical priority

Acinetobacter baumannii

carbapenem-resistant

Enterobacterales

third-generation cephalosporin-resistantcarbapenem-resistant
47 covered species across Escherichia, Klebsiella, Enterobacter, Citrobacter, Salmonella, Serratia, Proteus, Morganella:

Mycobacterium tuberculosis

rifampicin-resistant

Tuberculosis is treated separately in the WHO TB programme; included here for completeness.

High priority

Salmonella enterica serotype Typhi

fluoroquinolone-resistant

Typhi is a serotype of S. enterica; thresholds shown are for the species as a whole.

Shigella spp.

fluoroquinolone-resistant

Shigella is phylogenetically nested within Escherichia coli; E. coli thresholds are the closest available proxy until Shigella-specific thresholds are added.

Enterococcus faecium

vancomycin-resistant

Pseudomonas aeruginosa

carbapenem-resistant

Non-typhoidal Salmonella

fluoroquinolone-resistant

All S. enterica serotypes except Typhi.

Neisseria gonorrhoeae

third-generation cephalosporin- and fluoroquinolone-resistant

Staphylococcus aureus

meticillin-resistant

Medium priority

Group A streptococci

macrolide-resistant

Streptococcus pneumoniae

macrolide-resistant

Haemophilus influenzae

ampicillin-resistant

Group B streptococci

penicillin-resistant