World Antibiotic Awareness Week

18 - 24 November 2019

The future of antibiotics depends on all of us

Every year, World Antibiotic Awareness Week (WAAW) is celebrated by governments, health facilities, schools and communities across the globe. The campaign highlights best practices among the general public, health workers and policy makers to help stop the further emergence and spread of antibiotic resistance.

What is WAAW and why is it important?

In 2015, the Sixty-Eighth World Health Assembly, endorsed the Global Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance, calling for a dedicated global campaign to raise public awareness and understanding of antibiotic resistance. World Antibiotic Awareness Week (WAAW) takes place every November to promote global education on antibiotics, how they should be used, and the growing risks of antibiotic resistance. But for now, global awareness of all these issues remains relatively low.

Although raising individuals’ awareness of antibiotics and resistance is important, the campaign recognizes that real and actionable change happens when communities everywhere become engaged.

Infections & Antibiotics

Bacteria exist as a normal part of everyday life; in our air and water, on our skin and inside our bodies. While some bacteria can be helpful, others can be harmful and lead to infections. Although there are two main types of infections, viral and bacterial, antibiotics should only be used to treat bacterial infections. They do not work against viruses, such as cold and flu.

Antiobiotics work by entering and attaching to the bacterial cell, reducing the bacteria’s ability to survive and multiply. If successful, the bacteria will stop growing and die. Antibiotics begin to work as soon as you start taking them, however it may take a few days before you start to feel better.

Antibiotics are important and powerful medicines and you should only take them when prescribed to you by a healthcare worker. And you must follow the dosage and instructions provided.

What is AMR?

Since their discovery, antibiotics have served as the cornerstone of modern medicine. However, the persistent overuse and misuse of antibiotics in human and animal health have encouraged the emergence and spread of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), which occurs when microbes, such as bacteria, become resistant to the drugs used to treat them. AMR is rising to dangerously high levels in all parts of the world and is threatening our ability to combat common infectious diseases and support modern medical procedures.

In 2015, the World Health Organization launched a comprehensive global action plan on antimicrobial resistance to ensure that, in the generations to come, we can continue to prevent and treat infectious diseases with safe and effective antibiotics.

The global action plan has five strategic objectives:

To improve awareness and understanding of antimicrobial resistance;

To strengthen knowledge through surveillance and research;

To reduce the incidence of infection;

To optimize the use of antimicrobial agents;

And to develop the economic case for sustainable investment that takes account of the needs of all countries, and to increase investment in new medicines, diagnostic tools, vaccines and other interventions.

How we can slow the spread of resistance

The role of vaccination, safe sex, food hygiene, handwashing, clean water, and prudent use in preventing the spread of AMR

Vaccination

Routine immunization is the foundation for strong, resilient health systems and universal health coverage.

Vaccines protect against more than 25 debilitating diseases, including measles, tetanus, meningitis, and typhoid, and every disease that is prevented by vaccination is an antimicrobial medicine avoided.

Find out more

Food Hygiene

Food can become contaminated at any point during slaughtering or harvesting, processing, storage, distribution, transportation and preparation.

Inadequate food hygiene can lead to potentially fatal foodborne diseases and death. Improved education in the safe handling of food is a key measure in preventing these diseases as well as in containing the spread of antimicrobial resistance.

Find out more

Clean Water/Sanitation

Sanitation is a basic component of good healthcare. Despite this, levels of global sanitation are inconsistent. Poor sanitation is linked to transmission of diseases such as cholera, diarrhoea, dysentery and hepatitis A and it puts at risk the overall safety of patients. It can also exacerbate the spread of antimicrobial-resistant infections.

Lack of clean water further compromises sanitation levels. Open defecation, the discharge of untreated wastewater, and leakage from on-site sanitation systems at health-care facilities can all lead to the release of antibiotics, of resistant pathogens and of resistance genes into environmental reservoirs, thereby increasing levels of antimicrobial resistance.
Residues from antimicrobial manufacturing must also be carefully handled to mitigate the risks of polluting the environment and releasing dangerous levels of antimicrobials into the ecosystem.

Find out more

Safe Sex

More than 1 million sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are acquired every day worldwide.

When used correctly and consistently, condoms offer one of the most effective methods of protection against STIs, including HIV and gonorrhea, both of which are showing alarming levels of resistance to treatment globally.

Find out more

Handwashing

Effective infection, prevention and control (IPC), including hand hygiene, is the cornerstone of high-quality health care and one of the most effective ways of reducing the spread of antibiotic resistant organisms.

This is particularly true in health-care settings, where vulnerable and sick patients are more susceptible to developing drug resistant infections. Every infection prevented through handwashing is a medicine avoided and the threat of resistance reduced.

Find out more

Prudent Use

Although AMR is a natural part of evolution, the misuse and overuse of antimicrobials in people and animals, often without any professional oversight, is accelerating this process.

Misuse includes people taking antibiotics for viral infections like colds and flu and healthy animals being given antimicrobials to promote growth or to prevent disease.

Find out more

Title

Campaign updates

About antibiotic resistance

Infection Prevention & Control