Afrigather The Regional Workplace for Africa (AFRO), WHO Geneva in collaboration with WHO Namibia and the Ministry of Well being and Social Companies carried out a coaching on World Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) and Use surveillance system (GLASS) and WHONET software in Windhoek, for 12 chosen member states. The coaching aimed to construct capability of Member States to determine and/or improve nationwide surveillance programs for AMR and generate, accumulate, report, and use high quality information to tell choices on the nation, regional and world ranges.
Talking on the opening of the regional coaching on GLASS, Dr Mary Brantuo, WHO Namibia, Officer-in-Cost, referred to a number of initiatives carried out by WHO and companions to handle AMR. She stated that in 2015 the World Well being Meeting adopted a World Motion Plan on AMR and later in the identical yr launched the GLASS to standardize AMR surveillance. Roughly 80% of member states within the WHO African Area registered for GLASS together with Namibia. Globally 130 member states registered for GLASS.
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) threatens the efficient prevention and therapy of an ever-increasing vary of infections brought on by micro organism, parasites, viruses, and fungi. That is more and more turning into a worldwide public well being concern and is ranked amongst the highest 10 world public well being threats.
In 2019, 4.95 million deaths have been related to drug-resistant bacterial infections with essentially the most important burden occurred within the sub-Saharan Africa Area, the place 1.07 million individuals died due to bacterial resistance . The latest fifth GLASS report (December 2022) revealed a worldwide elevated fee of AMR charges by greater than 15% in 2020 in contrast with 2017 in pathogens inflicting bloodstream infections (Klebsiella pneumoniae and Acinetobacter spp.), calling for efforts to strengthen an infection prevention and management measures in hospital settings.
Dr Brantuo famous the challenges by many international locations for AMR surveillance capabilities and laboratory infrastructures and underscored the necessity for capability growth to generate, accumulate, report, and use high quality AMR information utilizing GLASS pointers and WHONET software, a free desktop Home windows utility developed by a WHO Collaborating Middle for the administration and evaluation of microbiology laboratory information with a specific deal with antimicrobial resistance surveillance.
Talking on the identical event, Mr Ben Nangombe, Govt Director of the Ministry of Well being Social Companies stated that the assembly represents greater than a gathering of minds and experience however is a testomony of ‘unwavering dedication of our nations to handle some of the urgent world well being challenges: the rise of antimicrobial resistance (AMR)’. He additional stated that ‘in an age the place borders blur, ailments know no boundaries, and pathogens evolve at an alarming fee, collaboration and shared data are our most potent weapons. Africa stays the continent most bothered by infectious ailments and AMR can dramatically hamper therapy effectiveness and tremendously amplify illness burden and its problems’.
He accentuated the risk posed by AMR that as societies advance so ‘too do the microbial adversaries we face’. Mr Nangombe said that ‘infections that have been as soon as treatable now pose life-threatening challenges. The emergence of drug-resistant pathogens is aware of no discrimination, impacting not solely human well being but in addition animal well being, agriculture, and the surroundings. If we don’t act decisively, we danger sliding right into a future the place frequent infections develop into deadly, medical procedures develop into perilous, and healthcare programs strained underneath the burden of untreatable ailments.
The Namibia assembly had illustration from 12 WHO Africa Area member states from Angola, Benin, Burundi, Cabo Verde, Chad, Eswatini, Gabon, The Gambia, Liberia, Namibia, Senegal, Sierra Leone.
