The global fight against Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) took center stage on 26 September 2024, at the United Nations General Assembly High-Level Meeting on AMR (UN Headquarters, New York, USA). This silent pandemic brought world leaders together for the second time to confront AMR and laid out a roadmap of political commitments.
drive-AMS and EU-JAMRAI2, the second phase of the European Joint Action on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) and Healthcare-Associated Infections, are aligning their efforts, recognizing that both initiatives share crucial goals. EU-JAMRAI2 is dedicated to assisting EU Member States in implementing targeted actions against AMR, with the ultimate goal of safeguarding public health on the continent.
As part of drive-AMS, the team at Radboud University Medical Center in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, is expanding their SPICE Expert Registry to Greece, Lithuania, Romania and Portugal. SPICE stands for Specialized Programme for Infectious Disease Care Everywhere
From 18 to 24 November, join us and the global community in the WHO World Antibiotic Awareness Week (WAAW). This annual campaign raises awareness about AMR and promotes best practices to reduce the emergence and spread of drug-resistant infections.
Today marks the start of the World Antibiotic Awareness Week (WAAW), an annual initiative led by WHO bringing attention to AMR and promoting best practices worldwide. This year’s campaign emphasises the importance of education and taking concrete actions to tackle this critical healthcare challenge.
The drive-AMS methodology has successfully expanded beyond Europe, reaching both Africa and Asia. After having been implemented in Tanzania, drive-AMS’s distinctive approach, which combines antimicrobial use measurement, implementation support, and behavioural change, is now also active in Indonesia.
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.
Last Friday, the annual Global-PPS meeting in collaboration with bioMérieux took place on the occasion of ESCMID Global 2024, formerly known as ECCMID. Over 100 participants attended the hybrid meeting to learn more about the project’s activities, strategies and results. It was a special edition as Global-PPS also celebrated its 10 year anniversary!
From 18 to 21 March, the Romanian drive-AMS team reached a critical milestone as it organized its own in-country training course. Under the leadership of Prof. Dr. Mihaele Lupse, representatives from 8 Romanian hospitals assembled in Cluj for four days of presentations and discussions on all aspects of effective stewardship programs to optimize antibiotic use.
The European drive-AMS project, which São João leads in Portugal, was selected to integrate the 1st phase of the Sustainable Health Pact (PaSSus) 2030, within the scope of the National Health Plan 2030 (PNS), recently launched and promoted by the portuguese General Directorate for the Health (DGS).
A recent study compared antimicrobial prescribing patterns in paediatric patients from three hospitals in Sanandaj, Western Iran, with paediatric patients from hospitals in Southeast Asia and Europe. Standardised 2019 Global-PPS data were used.
In this insightful interview, Dr. Rolanda Valinteliene, Head of the Public Health Technology Centre at the Institute of Hygiene in Vilnius, shares her experiences and challenges in leading efforts against antimicrobial resistance in Lithuania.
In this interview Roxana Dobrota, a member of the Romanian drive-AMS team, shares her insights into her role as clinical pharmacist, the situation around AMR in her country and how this is handled in her hospital.
Another successful in-country training! The Greek team, led by Prof. Dr. Emmanuel Roilides from the General Hospital of Thessaloniki, organised their drive-AMS course from 22 to 24 February. Around 40 participants from 8 different hospitals took part in the training, including infectious diseases specialists, pharmacists, nurses, microbiologists and paediatricians.
Meet Ana Reis, the health psychologist who joined the Portuguese drive-AMS team. Ana elaborates on her approach to behavioural change, a key pillar of effective antimicrobial stewardship programmes.
Read our interview with Amanda Daniel, Lead Nurse and IPC Specialist from Wales who worked in a Ugandan hospital to help identify antimicrobial prescribing rates. The implementation of the Global-PPS in Uganda highlighted both the challenges and opportunities in addressing AMR and improving infection prevention and control practices.