From April 4th – 5th we attended the Africa Center for Disease Control’s (CDC) Technical Workshop on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) at the African Union in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
What is AMR?
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is the ability of a microorganism (like a bacteria, virus, or parasite) to stop the drugs that treat it – such as antibiotics, antivirals, and antimalarials – from working.
Because of AMR, treatments for infections become ineffective which means resistant infections persist and can spread to others.
Who was there and what happened?
The meeting brought together experts from all over the African continent and across multiple sectors, including human and animal health, private industry, civil society, academia, and research.
The goal was to determine the best way to implement the Africa CDC’s AMR Framework which is a strategy to engage public health institutions and leaders from the human and animal health sectors to collaborate to measure, prevent, and mitigate harm from AMR organisms.
During the workshop we broke into groups to develop detailed 12 month workplans to operationalize the four key components of the Africa CDC AMR Framework:
- Improving surveillance and laboratory systems
- Delaying emergence
- Limiting transmission
- Mitigating harm from AMR pathogens
In addition to this, our Managing Director Niniola Soleye presented during a panel on the human factor of the global AMR challenge.
From L to R: DRASA’s MD Niniola Soleye; Tapiwanashe Kujinga Director of the Pan African Treatment Access Movement
(PATAM); Onye Estelle Mbadiwe of Ducit Blue Solutions and the Global Antibiotic Resistance Partnership Nigeria; Vanessa
Carter, Patient Advocate and AMR Survivor; and Moderator Yewande Alimi from Africa CDC
From the perspective of the community, she spoke about antibiotic use in patients, awareness of AMR in communities, and the impact of environmental sanitation and hygiene.
And from the perspective of the health sector, she spoke about the impact of poor infection prevention and control, the need for accountability and transparency, and the need for regulations for both the formal and informal pharmaceutical sector.
What’s next?
As we do our part in Nigeria, we look forward to seeing progress in each African country on the AMR Framework implementation as part of our collective fight against superbugs.
Click the gallery below for more pictures from the technical workshop.
