A pair of workshops to improve capacity for monitoring for antimicrobial-resistant (AMR) pathogens and responding to potential outbreaks was held at the An-Naura Hall, Yayasan Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Complex yesterday.
The train-the-trainer workshop and antimicrobial consumption (AMC) surveillance workshop targeted the hospital setting and used guidance from the World Health Organization Regional Office for the Western Pacific.
Acting Director General of Medical and Health Services Pengiran Dr Haji Md Khalifah bin Pengiran Haji Ismail was the guest of honour at the opening ceremony.
The workshops saw around 40 participants involved in areas related to AMR and AMC, as well as outbreak management at the hospital level. This included infection control and prevention nurses, nursing leaders, clinicians involved in managing infections due to multi-drug resistant organisms, scientific officers, microbiologists and pharmacists. AMR surveillance is key to detecting outbreaks of AMR pathogens which may become life threatening and require an immediate response.
It also yields data to further improve antimicrobial stewardship and clinical practice, monitor trends in infection and resistance and assess interventions to reduce AMR.
AMR is driven by many complex factors, but overuse and misuse of antibiotics are among the leading causes. Measuring and analysing the consumption and use of antibiotics is critical to informing the development of appropriate strategies to improve the use of antibiotics.
Monitoring AMC provides insights and tools needed to inform therapy decisions, to assess the public health consequences of antimicrobial misuse and to evaluate the impact of resistance containment interventions. – James Kon
