By Polina Starchenko, European Respiratory Society
To mark the European Antibiotic Awareness Week, the European Respiratory Society and VALUE-Dx project team hosted an online event: “Rapid diagnostics to revolutionise our response to respiratory infections: Fighting Antimicrobial Resistance”. Taking place on 17 November, it gathered over 230 participants, including health professionals, EU officials, patients, researchers, civil society and industry representatives.
The programme opened with a first-hand testimonial on AMR and antibiotic use by Fran Husson, a patient advocate with several respiratory conditions. Linking to her experience, project coordinator Prof Herman Goossens presented how VALUE-Dx builds the medical and economic case for rapid diagnostics as a public good in the fight against antibiotic resistance. His VALUE-Dx colleagues, Prof Evelina Tacconelli and Prof Maarten Postma, shared data on the effect of antimicrobial stewardship on resistance rates and discussed the impact and value of diagnostics from economic and public health perspectives.
In addition to project findings, the event served as a platform for high-level presentations from the European Union: European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and the European Commission (EC, DG SANTE). Dr Dominique L. Monnet (ECDC) presented novel data on AMR and antimicrobial consumption in the EU/EEA, that was published earlier that day as a range of ECDC reports and publications. Mr Stefan Schreck (EC) outlined various EU initiatives to tackle AMR, including activities of the Health Emergency Preparedness and Response (HERA) and relevant funding programmes.
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