{"id":155227,"date":"2023-08-29T19:40:14","date_gmt":"2023-08-29T17:40:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/southern-africa\/botswana\/african-health-ministers-mobilize-against-dangerous-threat-of-antimicrobial-resistance\/"},"modified":"2023-08-29T19:40:14","modified_gmt":"2023-08-29T17:40:14","slug":"african-health-ministers-mobilize-against-dangerous-threat-of-antimicrobial-resistance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/southern-africa\/botswana\/african-health-ministers-mobilize-against-dangerous-threat-of-antimicrobial-resistance\/","title":{"rendered":"African health ministers mobilize against dangerous threat of antimicrobial resistance"},"content":{"rendered":"

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African health ministers today endorsed a regional strategy to ramp up action against antimicrobial resistance, which is estimated to have directly contributed to 1.27 million deaths in sub-Saharan Africa in 2019.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The region faces a high burden of antimicrobial resistance, which occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites change over time and no longer respond to medicines, making infections harder to treat. Globally, around 10 million people \u2013 including 4.1 million in the African region \u2013 are projected to die of antimicrobial resistance by 2050.<\/p>\n

While most African countries have national action plans to address antimicrobial resistance, there is poor implementation due to lack of political commitment, inadequate antimicrobial surveillance, including insufficient laboratory capacity, limited capacity to ensure optimized antimicrobials use and promote awareness and understanding of the threat posed by antimicrobial resistance. Poor infection prevention and control measures, and inadequate water, sanitation and hygiene services also pose challenges.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe growing threat of antimicrobial resistance requires scaled-up and sustained action by all \u2013 from governments to individuals and across all sectors,\u201d said Dr Matshidiso Moeti, World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Director for Africa. \u201cThe commitment made today comes at a crucial time. WHO will continue supporting countries to reinforce measures for an effective response against antimicrobial resistance.\u201d<\/p>\n

The resolution adopted during the Seventy-third session of the WHO Regional Committee for Africa in Gaborone, Botswana, aims to strengthen coordination and governance of action against antimicrobial resistance, improve awareness and understanding, step up surveillance of antimicrobial resistance and antimicrobial use, and reinforce applicable national regulations and laws.<\/p>\n

The regional strategy target that, by 2030, all countries will have a functioning \u201cOne Health\u201d approach \u2013 encompassing human, animal and environment health \u2013 on priority antimicrobial resistance actions. All countries should also have a monitoring and evaluation system, be conducting national awareness programmes, and have enrolled in a global portal for standardized approach to data collection, analysis, interpretation and sharing. Additionally, all countries should implement measures to optimize responsible use of antimicrobials in health care facilities by 2030.<\/p>\n

In the African region, the burden of antimicrobial resistance is also exacerbated by lack of enforcement of prescriptions and selling regulations, misuse and overuse of antibiotics in human and in animal feed, leading to spread of antibiotic-resistant strains.<\/p>\n

The inappropriate use of antimicrobials in human, plant and livestock increases the risk of infections with microbes that are resistant to available treatments, potentially resulting in severe illness and death.<\/p>\n

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of WHO Regional Office for Africa.<\/i><\/p>\n

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South Africa Today Africa \u2013 Southern Africa Botswana<\/a> News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Download logo African health ministers today endorsed a regional strategy to ramp up action against antimicrobial resistance, which is estimated to have directly contributed to 1.27 million deaths in sub-Saharan Africa in 2019. The region faces a high burden of antimicrobial resistance, which occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites change over time and no […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":155228,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/who-africa.africa-newsroom.com\/files\/large\/e2859b55e2c1585","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2461],"tags":[258,256,4380,17329,2462,5134,5731,8788,28265,257,7940,254,6791],"class_list":["post-155227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-botswana","tag-africa","tag-africa-news","tag-african","tag-antimicrobial","tag-botswana-news","tag-dangerous","tag-health","tag-ministers","tag-mobilize","tag-news","tag-resistance","tag-south-africa-today","tag-threat"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/who-africa.africa-newsroom.com\/files\/large\/e2859b55e2c1585","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155227\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}