Antimicrobial Stewardship

On behalf of ESGAP & ISC, we invite you to complete the first worldwide survey on Antimicrobial Stewardship. The survey is based on previous national surveys from around the world, and has been piloted and refined across all five continents. The results will be presented at each both ISC & ESCMID meetings, and data will be available to allow continental, national and local benchmarking of antimicrobial stewardship programmes.

We would like one person from each hospital to complete the survey. It would be helpful, where appropriate, if you could disseminate this survey link through your contacts or organizations. The survey uses the web-based software SurveyMonkey®. It will take between 30 to 45 minutes to complete the survey completely. Could you please complete the survey NO LATER THAN MARCH 19TH 2012. After this time we will not be able to include your data in the analysis for ECCMID 2012 but we are still happy to hear from you. THE FINAL DEADLINE DATE IS 10/4/2012.

Click here to take survey

If you have any problems accessing the survey using the link provided, please contact Philip Howard at p.howard@leeds.ac.uk He will sort out another method for you.

We hope you are able to participate in this important survey. Many thanks in advance.

Good news! Our first position paper, after more than a year of revisions, suggestions and corrections has been published in Frontiers in Antimicrobials. View the online abstract here 10 Commandments Abstract.

Now, please share it with all your colleagues and friends involved in ATB teaching, managing or prescribing at any level. As you surely have experienced in your professional lives - if guidelines or position papers rest in a desk without being disseminated they are useless!

View the Full 10 Commandments PDF here.

To improve and sustain hand hygiene and help save lives by reducing health care-associated infection in your health-care facility, register with WHO SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands and be part of this exciting global movement. Register here.

WHO is inviting healthcare facilities around the world to use the WHO Hand Hygiene Self-Assessment Framework and to submit their results online. This is a tool that provides a situation analysis of hand hygiene promotion and practices within an individual health-care facility, according to a set of indicators and a score. Through this survey WHO aims to obtain a picture of hand hygiene progress worldwide and to identify what areas of hand hygiene promotion need further improvement on the global scale. WHO will keep the facility name and data strictly confidential and will only disseminate summary data. Over 14,000 institutions have already signed up!

The use of the Framework and the creation of an action plan based on the obtained results will also be the focus of 5 May 2012, under the call What's YOUR plan?

The Survey online data submission system is available in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and Vietnamese. The survey final deadline is 31 December 2011.

Preserving the Power of Antibiotics.

The 1st Global Forum on Bacterial Infections: Balancing Treatment Access and Antibiotic Resistance was held in New Delhi from 3-5 October 2011. This two and a half day event focused on two critical issues: 1) the significant burden imposed by bacterial infections - particularly pneumonia and hospital-acquired infections - in the developing world and 2) the challenges of expanding access to antibiotics while being vigilant about the development of drug resistance. Delegates shared research findings and discussed challenges and possible solutions relevant to the developing world context. It was the first gathering of its kind to be held in a developing country.

The Global Forum was convened by the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) in collaboration with the Global Antibiotic Resistance Partnership (a project of the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy - CDDEP), with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The ISC was a strong Forum collaborator, leading a session on Antibiotic Stewardship and sponsoring several participants.

During the Forum, a “New Delhi Call to Action on Preserving the Power of Antibiotics” was signed by:

• (From Kenya): Hon. Prof Peter Anyang’ Nyong’o, Minister for Medical Services of the Republic of Kenya,
• (From Ghana): Hon. Robert Joseph Mettle-Nunoo, Deputy Minister of Health, Ghana, and
• (From Vietnam): Hung Thai Cao, Vice Director of Medical Services Administration, Ministry of Health, Vietnam

Other countries are encouraged by CDDEP and ISC to join the Call to Action, which is open for signing by Government Ministers. More information is available at http://www.cddep.org/.

Full Call to Action document in pdf form.

The ISC AS workgroup met in Chicago and discussed activities since the last meeting. Some Highlights:

• The “Ten commandments” for the appropriate use of antibiotics by the practicing physician in an outpatient setting is now under revision for publication.

• Suggestions for improving the participation in the Discussions section of the website were made. We will be inviting one or two experts monthly to initiate a discussion relevant to their area and send an alert to every member of the group.

• Another meeting was held with representatives of ESCMID, ESGAP and Alliance Francophone Contre le développement des Bactéries Multi- Résistantes aux Antibiotiques (AC-2-BMR). We discussed several topics, as the possibility of them to disseminate our website, the possibility of program joint symposia and educational courses in the future, and the possibility of disseminating and participate in a pilot evaluation of the ESCMID bundles for using antibiotics, under final preparation.

The full report can be found here October 2011 Update

The ISC Antibiotic Stewardship working group actively endorses this exciting public advocacy initiative of the British Society for Chemotherapy. See Antibiotic Action.

Dr. Laura Piddock describes the initiative in this video.

Antibiotic Action is a direct outcome of The Urgent Need Initiative. There are serious concerns regarding the future effectiveness of currently available antibiotics and the lack of antibiotic agents in the drug pipeline.

Antibiotic Action is the forum through which we will call all parties – UK government, medical, industry and charities – to identify and implement solutions within the research, regulation and economic markets to stimulate and regenerate interest in the discovery and development of antibiotic agents of the future.

On December 10, 2011 at the Palms Hotel in Miami Beach, Florida a one-day course will cover antimicrobial resistance, antimicrobial stewardship initiatives, barriers and local successes in implementing such programs and infection control issues which will enable clinicians who are actively engaged in antimicrobial stewardship, infection control and hospital epidemiology, hospital administration or public health to incorporate the latest findings from clinical research into their practices and improve the quality and safety of their medical care.

The full brochure can be found here FASS 2011.

Organized by the Center for Disease Dynamics Economics and Policy (CDDEP) and The Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) and co-sponsored by the International Society of Chemotherapy (ISC), the 1st Global Forum on Bacterial Infections: Balancing Treatment Access and Antibiotic Resistance will focus on aspects of antibiotic access and resistance with particular relevance to low- and middle-income countries.

The disease burden of childhood pneumonia and policies to encourage antibiotic stewardship are just two of the topics that attendees will explore. The meeting will bring together policymakers, clinicians, public health programme managers and research experts from a variety of disciplines and sectors to introduce and evaluate policy innovations designed to work in low-resource countries.

Come and learn about the problems and be part of the solution!

Where: India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, India
When: 3–5 October 2011

More information

No excuse now for not having your say on anything now. We have markedly improved the forums and signing up is made very easy by the ability to use existing Facebook, OpenID or Google accounts. Come and talk stewardship at Forums.

A conference on issues pertaining to animal use stewardship entitled "Antimicrobial Stewardship in Canadian Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine: How is Canada doing and what still needs to be done?" will be held at the Toronto Airport Marriott October 30th to November 2nd, 2011. For further information see www.antimicrobialcanada.