September 26, 2022
OHT researchers and MAAP collaborators find that current AMR surveillance methods in 14 African countries cannot sufficiently tackle inappropriate antibiotic use.
One Health Trust and other partners in the Mapping Antimicrobial Resistance and Antimicrobial Use (MAAP) consortium reviewed 819,584 AMR records collected between 2016 and 2019 from 205 laboratories across 14 African countries. The findings highlight the urgent need to prioritize building the capacity to monitor AMR; of 50,000 laboratories in the networks surveyed, only 1.3% have the capacity for bacteriology testing. The authors refer to this level of testing as “flying blind” regarding understanding the extent of the AMR problem and informing appropriate strategies to address it. Evidence suggests that the irrational use of certain antibiotics is coupled with a lack of access to others; only four drugs comprised more than two-thirds (67%) of all the antibiotics used in healthcare settings.
Read the brief here.
