On 9 December 2022, the World Health Organisation (WHO) published the WHO AWaRe (Access, Watch, Reserve) Antibiotic Book. It is a concise, evidence-based guide for choosing antibiotics, doses, routes of administration and duration of treatment for more than 30 of the most common clinical infections in children and adults, in both primary health care and hospital settings.
On the 1st of November 2022, Radboud University Medical Centre (Radboudumc) and University of Antwerp joined forces to launch drive-AMS, a new project funded under the EU4Health Programme. This project aims to intensify antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) programmes across the European Union by improving prudent antimicrobial use (AMU) and strengthening AMU surveillance, which are both key priorities of the EU One Health Action Plan on AMR.
Every year from 18 until 24 November the World of Antimicrobial Awareness Week (WAAW) takes place. It is a global campaign to improve awareness and understanding of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and encourages best practices among the public, One Health stakeholders, and policymakers. They all play a critical role in reducing the further emergence and spread of AMR.
The Commonwealth Partnerships for Antimicrobial Stewardship (CwPAMS) has published a paper describing the development and implementation of an Antimicrobial Stewardship (AMS) checklist for Sub-Saharan Africa.
Doctor Anthony Enimil is a Paediatric Infectious Disease Specialist, based in the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Ghana. He is also a member of the Hospital Antimicrobial Stewardship Committee. In this interview, Anthony shares his experience with Global-PPS, the advantages of the study and some future challenges.
Doctors Without Borders will soon deploy its innovative Antibiogo application in several of its laboratories in Mali, Jordan, Yemen and the Central African Republic. This free, open source and offline downloadable Android application will contribute to an increase of information technology to support antimicrobial prescribing in low-and middle-income countries (LMIC).
We interviewed Mari Rose De los Reyes, an infectious disease specialist at the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) in Manila, the Philippines. Mari Rose coordinates the national Global-PPS in the country. This network has grown from 16 initial sites to 80 sites all over the Philippines.
Read our unique testimonial with Kate Clezy and Marije Baan from Doctors Without Borders (MSF) about their involvement in Global-PPS.
In May 2022, the Russian network of hospitals within the Global-PPS project published a new paper in the Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease journal. The goal of the study was to evaluate prescribing patterns of antimicrobials in COVID-19 patients in several Russian multi-field hospitals, and to quantify the prescribing in relation to quality indicators.
At the 32st edition of the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID), the Global-PPS team from the University of Antwerp and participants from Georgia, Montenegro, and the Philippines present their latest Global-PPS results. This year, ECCMID will take place for the first time as a hybrid event both online and on-site in Lisbon, Portugal on 23 – 26 April 2022.