The current trend in AMR in Uganda and globally is rising and calls for immediate action. The 71st UN General Assembly (UNGA), the 68th World Health Assembly, and organizations including the World Health Organization (WHO), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and the World Organization for ...Animal Health (OIE), have agreed on a set of actions that member countries such as Uganda are committed to implement. The Government of Uganda (GoU) has put in place a framework through this National AMR Action Plan to address the threat AMR poses to the welfare of the peoples of Uganda. The Action Plan sets out a coordinated and collaborative One Health approach involving key stakeholders in government and other sectors to confront the threat and shall be coordinated by a Uganda National Antimicrobial Resistance Committee (UNAMRC).
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Antibiotics have been a critical public health tool since the discovery of Penicillin in 1928, saving the lives of millions of people around the world. In developing country like ours, where the burden of treatable disease is very high and access to health facilities and laboratories is difficult, a...ntibiotics have long acted as miracle drugs. Today, however, the emergence of drug
resistance in bacteria is reversing the miracles of the past eighty years, with drug choices for the treatment of many bacterial infections becoming increasingly limited, expensive, and in some cases, nonexistent. Diseases previously regarded as relatively easy to manage are much harder to treat as doctors must use “last-resort” drugs that are more costly, take longer to work
and are often unavailable or unaffordable in developing countries. Moreover, regular prescription of antibiotics, random treatment, over the counter sales, inadequate dosage, inclusion of antibiotics in animal feeds and agriculture has contributed equally to emergence of antibiotics resistance as silent epidemic within the country.
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