Recently, Group of Seven (G7) countries met at Berlin to join hands against antimicrobial resistance (AMR).
Major Highlights of the meeting
- Antimicrobial resistance as a bigger threat: Health ministers from the Group of Seven (G7) highly industrialised countries recently recognised antimicrobial resistance was a bigger threat to low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) even though fighting it was a shared responsibility.
- Death and effect on GDP: Nearly 700,000 people die of AMR every year. The toll can rise to as many as 10 million by 2050 and eat up 3.8 per cent of annual global gross domestic product (GDP).
- The G7 committed to establish new international integrated surveillance systems and improve existing ones to monitor AMR and antibiotics use among humans, animals and plants and the effect on the environment.
- This will be in cooperation with the World Health Organisation, Food and Agriculture Organisation, World Organisation for Animal Health and the United Nations Environment Programme.
Challenges Posed by AMR
- Antibiotic resistance is emerging as the threat to successful treatment of infectious diseases, organ transplantation, cancer chemotherapy and major surgeries.
- The issue of AMR causes out of pocket expenditure on health care, especially on medicines. The use of high order drugs or second-line expensive antibiotics pushing treatment cost high.
- Neonates and elderly both are prone to infections and are vulnerable.
Global Concerns:
- It is a global health and development threat.
- WHO has declared that AMR is one of the top 10 global public health threats facing humanity. AMR is already responsible for up to 7,00,000 deaths a year.
|
Global effort:
Global Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance (GAP): Globally, countries committed to the framework set out in the Global Action Plan1 (GAP) 2015 on AMR during the 2015 World Health Assembly and committed to the development and implementation of multisectoral national action plans.
Tripartite Joint Secretariat on Antimicrobial Resistance: Tripartite joint secretariat (FAO, OIE and WHO) has been established and is hosted by WHO to drive multi-stakeholder engagement in AMR.
Global Antimicrobial Resistance and Use Surveillance System (GLASS): WHO launched it in 2015 to continue filling knowledge gaps and to inform strategies at all levels. GLASS has been conceived to progressively incorporate data from surveillance of AMR in humans, surveillance of the use of antimicrobial medicines, AMR in the food chain and the environment. |
India’s effort:
India’s Red Line campaign: Which demands that prescription-only antibiotics be marked with a red line, to discourage the over-the-counter sale of antibiotics– is a step forward.
National Health Policy, 2017, terms antimicrobial resistance as one of the key healthcare issues and prioritises the development of guidelines regarding antibiotic use and check on restricting the growth of antibiotics. The National Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance (NAP-AMR) 2017 has assigned coordinated tasks to multiple government agencies involving health, education, environment, and livestock to change prescription practices and consumer behaviour and to scale up infection control and antimicrobial surveillance.
FSSAI has set certain guidelines limiting the antibiotics in food products such as fish and honey. |
Best practices:
Rythu Bandhu:
- is a support scheme for farmers in Telangana, which provides cheque payments to farmers based on their landholdings.
- Under this scheme Telangana government gives every beneficiary farmer Rs 4,000 per acre as “investment support” before every crop season.
- The objective is to help the farmer meet a major part of his expenses on seed, fertiliser, pesticide, and field preparation.
Telangana Dalit Bandhu scheme:
- Dalit Bandhu enables entrepreneurship among Dalits through a direct benefit transfer of Rs 10 lakh per family.
- This is going to be the biggest cash transfer scheme in the country.
- To promote Dalit entrepreneurship, the government has decided to start a system of reservation for Dalits in sectors where the government issues licences. This includes wine shops, medical shops, fertiliser shops, rice mills, etc.
BALA- Building as Learning Aid- UP
- It is an innovative concept for teaching through child-friendly, learning and fun-based physical environment by building new infrastructure or refurbishing the existing School and Anganwadi buildings.
- BALA includes the development of the entire physical environment of the School – indoor, outdoor and semi-open spaces.
READ MORE: Daily Prelims Booster
READ MORE: Daily News Analysis
Leave a Comment