Archives annuelles : 2025

The drive-AMS project has officially concluded its mission with a high-level meeting held in Brussels from 16 to 18 October. Consortium members as well as other AMR experts, policymakers, and public health officials from across Europe gathered to review the project’s achievements and lessons learned, but also to discuss possibilities to broaden the impact of drive-AMS and to make its legacy sustainable.

With the drive-AMS project coming to an end, it’s time to look back and evaluate, but also to look toward the future. In this interview article, our Country Leads from Romania, Lithuania, Greece and Portugal reflect on the project’s impact and achievements, as well as on the challenges that accompanied the journey. Although some difficulties were shared across countries, others were specific to national contexts. What united the Country Leads, however, was a shared commitment to innovation and collaboration, and, most importantly, a unanimous consensus about the project’s impact and success.

After three intense years of excellent collaboration, the drive-AMS project has officially come to an end. Time for project coordinators Erika Vlieghe and Jeroen Schouten to look back on the achievements and lessons learned.

At the end of the EU-4H financed phase of drive-AMS, Unidade Local de Saúde São João, the Portuguese partner of the project, organized a two-days meeting gathering all the sixteen Portuguese Local Health Units aboard the program. In addition to these sixteen healthcare institutions, the Society of Intensive Care Medicine, the Society of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology, the Portuguese Hospital Infection Association, the Portuguese Hospital Administrators Association and the Portuguese Drug Agency (Infarmed) were also represented.

In this latest edition of our AMS expert interview series, we speak with Esmée Ruizendaal, a clinical microbiologist at Radboud University Medical Center in The Netherlands, about her journey into global health, her upcoming SPICE* mission in Tanzania, and the value of collaborative mentorship in antimicrobial stewardship (AMS).

As the drive-AMS project reaches its conclusion, we’re thrilled to invite you to a special Networking Event on 16 October 2025, hosted at the Thon Hotel EU in Brussels. This event is part of the three-day final meeting of the drive-AMS initiative and will bring together key voices in antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) from across Europe.

On 20 and 21 October, all participating Portuguese institutions will gather in a drive-AMS-PT Long-Road Meeting, to discuss the program’s significance and future in Portugal.

Nous sommes ravis d'annoncer que le 15 septembre, Ines Pauwels soutiendra publiquement sa thèse de doctorat intitulée : “Global antimicrobial prescribing patterns and the initiation of stewardship activities in hospitals within the Global-PPS network” (Modèles mondiaux de prescription d'antimicrobiens et lancement d'activités de gestion dans les hôpitaux du réseau Global-PPS).”

From 17 to 19 June 2025, Trinidad and Tobago’s capital Port of Spain became the hub of antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) and infection prevention and control (IPC) education, as healthcare professionals from across the Caribbean gathered for the first-ever drive-AMS Masterclass in the region.

The drive-AMS team recently had the privilege of conducting a highly interactive and impactful course in Nairobi, Kenya, focused on advancing antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) practices. Organized in collaboration with The International Centre for Antimicrobial Resistance Solutions (ICARS), ReAct Africa Network, Radboudumc, Aga Khan University Hospital Nairobi and other key partners, the course brought together dedicated teams from eight Kenyan centers and one Somalian center, all eager to strengthen their AMS initiatives.

Antimicrobial resistance knows no borders, and neither does drive-AMS. Following its successful implementation in Greece, Portugal, Romania and Lithuania, the drive-AMS approach is now taking root in Cyprus. With the enthusiastic leadership of Dr. Elisavet Constantinou, Dr. Markella Marcou and Dr. Linos Hadjihannas, the country has taken major steps in implementing antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) at the hospital level. In a first major milestone, eight newly established AMS teams were trained in February 2025 as part of a tailor-made drive-AMS training. In this interview, Dr. Marcou and Dr. Hadjihannas reflect on their motivation, the AMR situation in Cyprus, and their expectations for the future.

L'initiative SPICE (Specialized Program for Infectious Disease Care Everywhere) vient d'étendre à la Grèce le soutien de ses experts. Cette initiative s'inscrit dans le cadre plus large du projet drive-AMS et vise à permettre aux hôpitaux des pays partenaires de bénéficier de services de consultation AMS personnalisés et soutenus par des experts.

Le 21 mai, l'ULS São João a réuni les dirigeants de 16 ULS (unités de santé locales) portugaises pour la réunion nationale de direction du programme drive-AMS, un projet visant à améliorer les pratiques de prescription d'antimicrobiens par le biais de stratégies de changement de comportement.

We’re excited to announce the Final Consortium Meeting of the drive-AMS project, taking place from 16–18 October 2025 in Brussels. This three-day event will gather partners, experts, and stakeholders from across Europe to reflect on the achievements of drive-AMS in strengthening antimicrobial stewardship and to shape the future of post-project collaboration.

At the ESCMID Global 2025 conference (Vienna, 11-15 April), the drive-AMS consortium presented key outcomes from its innovative EU-wide antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) project. The poster, titled “Implementation of hospital antimicrobial stewardship in Europe using a data-driven behaviour change approach,” showcased inspiring results from the first two years of the project.