WHO calls for urgent action on antimicrobial resistance

Main Category: MRSA / Drug Resistance
Article Date: 11 Jun 2005 - 6:00 PDT

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Manila - Alarmed over growing resistance to antibiotics, the World Health Organization (WHO) and Member States in the South-East and Western Pacific Regions have agreed to work on a common strategy for surveillance and containment of antimicrobial resistance.

"Over 90% of isolates for some species are resistant to agents previously considered as first-line choices," Dr Shigeru Omi, WHO Regional Director for the Western Pacific, said in a statement to a workshop on antimicrobial resistance surveillance and containment in Asia and the Pacific.

Dr Omi warned that resistance to first-, second-, and even third-line agents significantly compromises our ability to provide life-saving treatment. "The condition is even more profound in countries with fewer resources, where resistance affects patients in a very direct way through increased suffering, longer periods of illness and hospitalization, long-term complications, and death."

Fluoroquinolone resistance in E.coli, among others, already exceeds an alarming 50% of the isolates in some countries, and continues to rise rapidly.

Moreover, hospitalization itself can be a major threat to patients because of the risk of acquiring multi-resistant and potentially non-treatable infections.

Many Member States in the Western Pacific Region have not yet established comprehensive national surveillance programmes despite a WHO recommendation in 2001 for countries to implement evidence-based containment strategies.

Antimicrobial resistance has been monitored in the Region since 1991. Focal laboratories in 13 countries participate in the programme and maintain data on 22 common bacterial species which cause significant public health problems. Findings from several countries demonstrate that resistance rates for many species are among the highest in the world, and countries with initially low resistance have experienced a rapid rise in the proportion of strains resistant to some antimicrobials.

In this workshop, experts established priority recommendations for expanding and strengthening antimicrobial resistance surveillance activities in the Region and for linking surveillance activities to evidence-based containment strategies.

-- At the national level, participants proposed a strategy for the institution and ongoing improvement of national antimicrobial resistance surveillance programmes, including guidelines for surveillance strategies, network organization, standardized laboratory testing and quality assurance.

-- At the Regional level, WHO will take a lead role in the collection, interpretation and dissemination of resistance findings of public health importance.

Workshop members also identified a set of fundamental actions required to ensure that validated surveillance findings are used to support antimicrobial resistance containment efforts in the areas of clinical decision making, infection control interventions in health-care settings, disease-control programmes in the community, and the ongoing evaluation of national drug policy and therapy guidelines. Successful implementation of these recommendations depends on high-level commitment and sustained support from national ministries of health and on ongoing multi-sectoral collaboration.

http://www.wpro.who.int

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