This month’s newsletter shines a light on antimicrobial resistance (AMR), the global public health crisis recently reported as responsible for 1.27 million global deaths per year. Sadly, AMR is a major concern for health professionals, who are already struggling to treat antimicrobial resistant infections, as well as its threat to the outcomes of routine medical interventions, from surgery to chemotherapy. What has become clear in policy development, and emphasised in our guest articles, is the importance of a One Health approach in tackling this silent pandemic.
One Health is the recognition of the interconnectedness between people, animals and plants and their shared environment. As AMR can develop and spread between each of these areas of health, it requires a transdisciplinary and multisectoral collaborative approach, at all levels of society, to take every element into account and ensure the best possible outcome.
EPHA’s work on AMR over the years has greatly benefitted from its membership, with ideas and input from local, national, and regional levels, shaping policy recommendations. Similarly, the AMR Stakeholder Network utilises its diverse multisectoral expertise to inform its activities. The guest articles below, authored by Network members, present clinical, research and animal health perspectives around recent AMR developments.
AMR is seeing increased interest at the EU institutional level as well, with the European Commission planning to expand their own AMR One Health Network to partially include civil society. Other recent activity saw the Members of Parliament (MEP) Interest Group on AMR, to which EPHA co-hosts the secretariat, hold their Annual Meeting on Investigating the Environmental Dimensions of AMR, joined by a range of AMR experts from political, health, research and civil organisations in two lively recorded panel discussions.
Recognising then the great value of a One Health approach, EPHA is excited to share its newly published ‘setting the scene’ paper entitled An Overview of AMR: The health burden, science, surveillance, policy developments and areas of future action. This paper presents a concise account of current knowledge on AMR in the areas of public health, science, and surveillance, as well as recent international and European policy developments, considering human, animal and arable agriculture, and the environment. The intention is to enable those working in any relevant sector to gain a common understanding on AMR, and assist dialogue between actors to tackle the issue. We therefore hope that everyone working on this topic finds it a useful tool in their own activities.