Antimicrobial resistance is a major threat to modern medicine. This course in Clinical Antibiotic Stewarship brought to you by the South ...s="attribute-to-highlight medbox">African Antibiotic Stewardship Programme (SAASP) teaches the principles of antibiotic prescribing and an approach to common clinical problems. more

The international community sits at the tipping pointof a post-­‐antibiotic era, where common bacterial infections are no longer treatable with the ...highlight medbox">antibiotic armamentarium that exists. In South Africa, the identification of the first case of pan-­‐resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae(Brink et al, J Clin Microbiol. 2013;51(1):369-­‐72) marks a watershed moment and highlights ourtip of the antibiotic resistance ‘iceberg’ in this country. Multi-­‐drug resistant (MDR)-­‐bacterial infections, predominantly in Gram-­‐negative bacteria such as Klebsiella pneumoniae, Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosaand Acinetobacter baumanniiare now commonplace in South African hospitals. Whilst a number of expensive new antibiotics for Gram-­‐positive bacterial infections have been manufactured recently (some of which are licenced for usein South Africa), no new antibiotics active against Gram-­‐negative infections are expected in the next 10-­‐15years. Hence what we have now, needs conserving more

S Afr Med J 2018;108(7):546-550. DOI:10.7196/SAMJ.2018.v108i7.13149 Antimicrobial stewardship programmes have been introduced worldwide in response to the rise in antimicrobial resistance. The Worl...d Health Organization has mandated each Member State to produce a plan to address this problem. We report on the organic development of an antibiotic stewardship programme in a rural regional hospital in a resource-limited setting in South Africa. This has resulted in organisational change with increased awareness, participation, monitoring and education in antibiotic stewardship throughout the hospital more

These guidelines form part of efforts to institutionalize the prevention and containment of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in healthcare facilities in South Africa, as outlined in the Antimicrobial ...Resistance Strategic Framework and Implementation Plan. The focus of these guidelines is on two interrelated aspects of prevention of healthcare associated infections (HAIs) and their spread; and the application of antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) practices at hospital level. They aim to serve as a practical, step-by-step or ‘how-to’ guide, addressing the infection prevention and AMS components of a robust response in a hospital. They draw on evidence from various international guidance documents and standards for interventions that have been shown to be successful in infection prevention and AMS programmes. These interventions have been customised to the South African hospital setting based on local experiences in the public and private health sectors. This was done through a series of workshops and requests for comment involving country-level experts. more

These guidelines form part of efforts to institutionalise the prevention and containment of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in health care facilities in South Africa, as outlined in the Antimicrobial... Resistance Strategic Framework and Implementation Plan. The focus of these guidelines is on two interrelated aspects of prevention of healthcare associated infections (HAIs) and their spread; and the application of antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) practices at hospital level. more

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a multifaceted, international public health problem, which poses a direct threat to the safety of the population of South Africa. A national response is required to... complement the development of a global plan, as articulated in the WHO’s draft resolution EB134/37 “Combating antimicrobial resistance including antibiotic resistance”, adopted by theWorld Health Assembly in May 2014. The overuse of antimicrobials is driving resistance. A return to appropriate, targeted antimicrobial use in humans, animals and the environment is critical if we are to conserve the antimicrobial armamentarium. Various interventions have been put in place to address antimicrobial resistance in South Africa. However, these are insufficient to effectively tackle the threat faced by the country. The strengths of the current system are outweighed by its weaknesses. more

The Mapping Antimicrobial Resistance and Antimicrobial Use Partnership (MAAP) project has conducted a multi-year, multi-country study that provides stark insights on the under-reported depth of the antimicrobial resistance (AMR) crisis across Africa... and lays out urgent policy recommendations to address the emergency. MAAP reviewed 819,584 AMR records from 2016-2019, from 205 laboratories across Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Eswatini, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. MAAP also reviewed data from 327 hospital and community pharmacies and 16 national-level AMC datasets. more

The Mapping Antimicrobial Resistance and Antimicrobial Use Partnership (MAAP) project has conducted a multi-year, multi-country study that provides stark insights on the under-reported depth of the antimicrobial resistance (AMR) crisis across Africa... and lays out urgent policy recommendations to address the emergency. MAAP reviewed 819,584 AMR records from 2016-2019, from 205 laboratories across Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Eswatini, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. MAAP also reviewed data from 327 hospital and community pharmacies and 16 national-level AMC datasets. more