The Inaugural GARP Mozambique Meeting: Creating the Mozambique Working Group

In late summer, Mozambique held its first GARP-Mozambique meeting. One of the main purposes of the meeting was to create a multidisciplinary working group and formally connect its respective members.  Another goal was to hear about other GARP network member country experiences. The meeting opened with a brief description of resistance to antibiotics in Mozambique.  An exciting moment during this session was when the representative of the Minister of Health delivered the news that his Minister had signed New Delhi Call to Action to Preserve the Power of Antibiotics.  To date, this document has also been signed by Ministers or Deputy Ministers of Health from most other GARP countries (Kenya, South Africa and Vietnam) and Ghana.

Ensuing presentations and discussions emphasized resistance to antibiotics and the experiences of GARP South Africa and GARP Kenya. Next, participants shared what (little, unfortunately) is known about antibiotic resistance in Mozambique. Indeed the current lack of resistance information is one of the main reasons behind Mozambique s interest in joining GARP.

Specifically the working group seeks to:

i)  Assess the current situation regarding the use, quality and resistance levels of antibiotics in Mozambique through development of a situation analysis, as has been done to date in India, Kenya, South Africa and Vietnam

ii)  Meet regularly to review relevant research in this area,

iii) Propose new research projects to generate more data on resistance patterns and trends

iv) Recommend policies for rational use of antibiotics and for preventing the emergence of antibiotic resistance

On the second day of the meeting, the Working Group discussed which areas to prioritize immediately.  We settled on four and, for each, a few WG members volunteered their participation, as follows:

1. Antibiotic use and consumption (Khatia Munguambe, Jose Faftine, Betuel Sigauque, Evangelina Namburete)
2. Antibiotic drug quality (Lucilio Williams, Betuel Sigauque, Marilia Grachane, Esperanca Sevene)
3. Surveillance (Tomas Zimba, Lionel Monteiro, Betuel Sigauque)
4. Infection prevention and control (Tomas Zimba, Adriana Santos, Betuel Sigauque)

The GARP Mozambique Working Group intends to involve other stakeholders and draw on their expertise as much as possible.  This was reflected at the meeting through particication of many non-WG members, such as the World Health Organization, USAID, the World Bank, AECID, DFID and Management Sciences for Health.

GARP Mozambique is led by Chair Dr Betuel Sigauque and co-chair Dr Esperanca Sevene.  The GARP Mozambique coordinator is Silvia Chicuecue.  Please email Silvia with any questions or comments.