Dr. Birutė Zablockienė is part of the core drive-AMS team implementing antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) in Lithuania. In this interview, she shares insights into her work on combating antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and the challenges her team faces in ensuring appropriate antimicrobial use across multiple hospital departments.
Meet Shaheen Mehtar, professor of Infection Prevention and Control in South Africa. As a founding member of the Infection Control Africa Network, she has played a pivotal role in shaping infection control practices across the continent. In this interview, Prof. Mehtar discusses her work with the Global Point Prevalence Survey, the successes and challenges of implementing antimicrobial stewardship programs, and her hopes for improving IPC efforts in both hospital and outpatient settings.
In this interview, Professor Emmanuel Roilides, the country lead for the drive-AMS project in Greece, discusses his commitment to combating antimicrobial resistance. He shares the significant progress made by the Greek drive-AMS network in promoting antibiotic stewardship across hospitals, highlighting the challenges and successes encountered along the way. Professor Roilides also outlines the future goals of expanding the network and gaining broader state recognition to enhance the fight against resistant infections.
We are proud to announce that drive-AMS has been highlighted in the recent policy brief by the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, under the section “Boosting implementation of effective strategies to combat AMR.”
Dr. Biljana Carevic, a pioneering hospital epidemiologist, has dedicated her career to infection control and antibiotic stewardship. In this interview, Biljana discusses her work, the challenges of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in Serbia versus Norway, and her ongoing efforts with the Global Point Prevalence Survey.
In this interview, Mihaela Lupse, professor in infectious diseases and lead of the Romanian drive-AMS network, sheds light on the situation in her country. She elaborates on the ongoing efforts in fighting AMR and establishing the project in Romania.
In this interview, Dr. Raquel Duro, member of the Portuguese drive-AMS team, elaborates on her role within the project, the AMS interventions in her hospital and how AMR has affected patients.
The second part of the course dedicated to antimicrobial stewardship, integrated into the European drive-AMS project, recently took place.
It’s the end of our drive-AMS in-country trainings! From 15 until 18 May, the final course took place in Birštonas, Lithuania, organised by dr. Rolanda Valinteliene from the Institute of Hygiene in Vilnius and her team. The four days included presentations and workshops providing deeper insights into antimicrobial stewardship: basic requirements, objectives, prescribing patterns in Europe, quantity & quality of antimicrobial use, determinants & barriers, behavioural change and more.
Dr. Francisco Almeida from the Infection Prevention and Control and Antimicrobial Resistance Unit (UPCIRA) of São João Hospital, in Porto, Portugal, was awarded with the first prize of the AMS Certificate Programme 2022-2024 from ESCMID. He received the award for a project within the scope of drive-AMS, an antimicrobial stewardship project, with European funding, coordinated in Portugal by São João Hospital and involving 7 more national health units.