WHO/Europe has launched a new guide, providing support to countries on how to apply behavioural and cultural insights (BCI) for health. It presents a simple step-wise approach, complemented by a rich collection of detailed considerations, tools and
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exercises. The guide is the first of its kind, specifically developed for use by public health professionals developing policies, services and communications informed by BCI across health topics.
Some of the most persistent public health challenges involve human behaviour. Using a BCI lens means that health policies, services and communications can be tailored to the needs and circumstances of people and communities, and thereby help combat these challenges. The new Tailoring Health Programmes (THP) guide describes how this can be done.
Building on several topic-specific guides that focused on applying BCI to routine and influenza vaccination and tackling antimicrobial resistance, as well as external evaluations and a rigorous peer-review process, this guide is the result of over a decade of work by WHO/Europe. The THP approach has already been adopted in over 20 countries and has received positive feedback from public health agencies.
“This guide is the culmination of a decade of work involving many colleagues at country, regional and global levels. The guide is our “BCI bible”, guiding our work with and in countries to help tackle persistent health challenges,” said Katrine Bach Habersaat, Regional Advisor for BCI at WHO/Europe.
Karina Godoy, Senior Analyst and National Focal Point for Behavioural Insights at the Public Health Agency of Sweden, who is employing the approach described in the guide across several health projects, comments: “The THP guide is easy to use and at the same time provides detailed guidance and inspiration where needed. We have decided to translate the document into Swedish and use the approach widely”.
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AMR is one of the Key priority of the global health security agenda action package, as well as it is one of the commitments of Ministry of Public H
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ealth Afghanistan to combat AMR. In Afghanistan because of war and some other political issues the borders of the country are not well secured and well controlled therefore control of smuggling of medicine is a big challenge in front of the rational use of medicine. Lack of knowledge (professionals and public), poor economic state, conflict of war, presence of remote areas and etc…. are the other main challenges for this to won the battle of combating AMR.
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This National Action Plan addresses actions needed to be taken in order to combat antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in the country. It is obligatory t
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o raise awareness of antimicrobial resistance and promote behavioral change through public communication
programmes that targets human, animal and plant health. Inclusion of the use of antimicrobial agents and resistance in school curricula will further promote better understanding and awareness from an early age. Antimicrobial Resistance knowledge, surveillance and research will be strengthened through establishing a national surveillance system for antimicrobial resistance, establishing and building capacity for a national reference laboratory and designated laboratories for AMR surveillance, developing a national research agenda on AMR and establishing and supporting a coordinated mechanism that will ensure harmonized AMR guidelines, data management and sharing systems in human, animal and plant health settings.
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The focus of the current quarterly edition of Eurohealth (from the European Observatory on Healt
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h Systems and Policies) is Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) and contains the following articles:
• Strengthening implementation of AMR national action plans
• Fostering clinical development and commercialisation of novel antibiotics
• Tackling AMR in the community
• Quantifying the benefits of vaccines in combating AMR
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Antimicrobial resistance is a global threat as it is present in all parts of the world and it means that there is a shortage of effective antibioti
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cs to treat simple infections and diseases, also statistics reveal that because of antimicrobial resistance patients’ morbidity and mortality is increased, as well as healthcare related expenditures. Theoretical frameworks chosen for this study are Mark Salmon White’s construct for public health nursing and Tannahill’s model for health promotion. Both models focus on promoting and contributing to the health and well-being of the public. In this thesis the nurse’s role is explored and steps that can be taken towards contributing to minimizing antimicrobial resistance are listed
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The Antimicrobial Resistance Benchmark has evaluated for the second time how
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the most important players in the antibiotic market are addressing the rise of resistance and the global need for appropriate access to antibiotics. Although we can see progress — it’s hanging by a thread.
We have reached a tipping point where large and prominent drugmakers have retreated from the antibiotics field and smaller innovative biotech companies have gone bankrupt due to the poor financial rewards on offer.
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Irresponsible pharmaceutical companies fuel the proliferation of superbugs through supply chain pollution, the European Public Health Alliance (EPHA) reports.
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The advocacy group uncovered lapses such as dirty production and inadequate waste disposal in the production of antimicrobials in China and India, which supplies most of the antimicrobials consumed in Europe. In a briefing detailing the pollution, the EPHA urges major purchasers of antibiotics to blacklist irresponsible pharmaceutical companies, demand that the industry clean up its supply chain, introduce greater transparency on the origin of antibiotics, and review and revise procurement policies from an ethics perspective.
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This document was prepared in response to a need to review and potentially update the current recommendations for the antibiotic treatment of both
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inpatient and outpatient management of severe acute malnutrition (SAM). The current recommendations (Table 1) are based on guidelines published in 2013 in the WHO Pocketbook for Hospital Care for Children, and the 2013 update on SAM (outpatient management). The global threat of increasing antimicrobial resistance and new data on efficacy and safety profiles requires a re-review of the current evidence to ensure recommendations are the most appropriate. The evidence base for the use of antibiotics in children presenting with uncomplicated SAM has been recently enlarged.
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In the kingdom of Bahrain, the national antibiotic committee will set the framework for the nati
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onal response to AMR, especially bacterial resistance to antibiotics. It will be aligned with the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Global Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance, and with standards and guidelines from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE).
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Improvements in water sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and wastewater management in all sectors are critical elements of preventing infections and reducing the spread of antimicrobial
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resistance (AMR) as identified in the Global Action Plan to combat AMR. Yet, at present, WASH and wastewater management actors and improvement actions are under-represented in AMR multi-stakeholder platforms and national action plans (NAPs). This WHO/FAO/OIE technical brief on WASH and wastewater management to reduce the spread of AMR provides a summary of evidence and rationale for WASH and wastewater actions within AMR NAPs and sector specific policy to combat AMR. Evidence and actions are presented in the domains of; coordination and leadership, households and communities, health care facilities, animal and plant production, manufacturing of antimicrobials, and surveillance and research.
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The framework is to be used as a reference guide, applied according to local priorities and needs, and targeted at academic institutions, educators, accreditation bodies, regulatory agencies and other users.
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The ultimate aim is to ensure that all health workers are equipped with the requisite competencies at pre-service education and in-service training levels to address AMR in policy and practice settings.
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This is the first NAP on the Prevention and Containment of AMR in Kenya. It has been developed based on
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the National Policy on Prevention and Containment of AMR and the recommendations of the situation analysis on AMR conducted in 2011 and updated in 2016. This strategy provides a regulatory and implementation framework to establish and strengthen systems to contain the emergence and spread of AMR. Implementation of this strategy will require substantial funding and high-level political commitment. Because AMR is a multidisciplinary and intersectoral issue, successful implementation of this strategy will require effective coordination and collaboration among different sectors.
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March 2022. This report on good practices to combat AMR focuses on activities across human, animal, and environmental health in European countries. The
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report provides a description of practices, how they were implemented, achievements, and why the practice was unique.
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This policy brief aims to provide a review of the current progress on implementing the Burkina F
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aso national action plan on AMR, identifies critical gaps, and highlights findings to accelerate further progress in the human health sector. The target audience includes all those concerned with implementing actions to combat antimicrobial resistance in Burkina Faso.
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The Libyan national action plan has been aligned with WHO five objectives. Analysis of the current situation and addressing the gaps and
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the needs to reach the main goal “one health” approach involves several national sectors and actors, including human and veterinary health, agriculture and food and drug control center and environmental agencies. Therefore, a large committee of all stakeholders was formed with four technical subcommittees were established to addresses every aspect to contain antimicrobial resistance in the country.
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Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a global threat that requires urgent collaborative action within and among countries. AMR makes standard treatments ineffective and facilitates
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the spread of antimicrobial resistant infections rendering communities vulnerable. The Ministry of Health (MOH) and Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries & Blue Economy (MALF) recognized antimicrobial resistance as a priority following findings from status reports and studies from Ministries, Departments, Agencies and Stakeholders.
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Antimicrobial resistance has become a serious public health threat for effective treatment of an ever increasing range of infections caused by bacteria, parasites, viruses and fungi. When infections
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can no longer be treated by first-line antibiotics, other antibiotics must be used, which are both more expensive and more toxic. Treatment and hospitalization is prolonged, and patients undergoing operations and other medical procedures are more vulnerable to infections. All this imposes a huge burden on health care systems and on the economy of countries. This is a major challenge to the health system in Mauritius which provides health care free of user cost to the whole population.
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The product of all this work is the Standard Treatment Guideline and Essential Medicines List of Common Medical Conditions in the Kingdom of Swazil
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and. These systematically developed statements are designed to assist practitioners in making decisions about appropriate treatment for specific clinical conditions. They are meant to reflect expert consensus based on a review of current and published scientific evidence of acceptable approaches to diagnosis, man-agement, or prevention of specific conditions.It is enlightening to note that section A of the document contains the STG, and effort has been made to have the conditions commonly encountered in Swaziland classified according to systems. Written in simple, clear language, each section consists of a short definition followed by common symptoms and signs of the disease or condition and then management (pharmacological and nonpharmacological)
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BACKGROUND: Growing political attention to antimicrobial resistance (AMR) offers a rare opportunity for achieving meaningful action. Many governments have developed national AMR action plans, but mo
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st have not yet implemented policy interventions to reduce antimicrobial overuse. A systematic evidence map can support governments in making evidence-informed decisions about implementing programs to reduce AMR, by identifying, describing, and assessing the full range of evaluated government policy options to reduce antimicrobial use in humans.
METHODS AND FINDINGS: Seven databases were searched from inception to January 28, 2019, (MEDLINE, CINAHL, EMBASE, PAIS Index, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Web of Science, and PubMed). We identified studies that (1) clearly described a government policy intervention aimed at reducing human antimicrobial use, and (2) applied a quantitative design to measure the impact. We found 69 unique evaluations of government policy interventions carried out across 4 of the 6 WHO regions. These evaluations included randomized controlled trials (n = 4), non-randomized controlled trials (n = 3), controlled before-and-after designs (n = 7), interrupted time series designs (n = 25), uncontrolled before-and-after designs (n = 18), descriptive designs (n = 10), and cohort designs (n = 2). From these we identified 17 unique policy options for governments to reduce the human use of antimicrobials. Many studies evaluated public awareness campaigns (n = 17) and antimicrobial guidelines (n = 13); however, others offered different policy options such as professional regulation, restricted reimbursement, pay for performance, and prescription requirements. Identifying these policies can inform the development of future policies and evaluations in different contexts and health systems. Limitations of our study include the possible omission of unpublished initiatives, and that policies not evaluated with respect to antimicrobial use have not been captured in this review.
CONCLUSIONS: To our knowledge this is the first study to provide policy makers with synthesized evidence on specific government policy interventions addressing AMR. In the future, governments should ensure that AMR policy interventions are evaluated using rigorous study designs and that study results are published.
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The goals and objectives of the Sudan National Action Plan on AMR can only be achieved through implementing strategic interventions and activities
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with all concerned ministries and departments joining hands with other stakeholders to collaboratively tackle these challenges.
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