New Delhi (CNN) President Barack Obama wants to double the government's efforts combating drug-resistant superbugs responsible for millions of illnesses each year.

The White House said Tuesday that Obama will call for $1.2 billion in his upcoming budget proposal to fund research efforts and training programs designed to slow the spike in bacteria that defy antibiotics.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say those kinds of bugs kill 23,000 people a year in the United States, and cause 2 million sicknesses.

Obama wants to ramp up research efforts at government agencies looking into how bacteria grows immune to widely used antibiotics, and supporting scientists developing new drugs.

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