VICE President Constantino Chiwenga, pictured, yesterday cautioned medical practitioners to be rational when prescribing medication and to value appropriate use of antibiotics to curb the rise of antimicrobial resistance (AMR).
AMR is a condition where a bacteria becomes resistant to antibiotics in a person’s body.
Antimicrobials are critical tools used to fight diseases in humans, animals and plants. They include antibiotics, antivirals, antifungals and anti-protozoas.
Speaking at the official opening of the National Microbiology Reference Laboratory (NMRL) Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Unit and launch of Fleming Fund and Multi-partner Trust Fund grants at Sally Mugabe Central Hospital, Harare, Chiwenga said AMR was a silent pandemic which was contributing to loss of lives and posing a threat to health achievements.
“The emergence and spread of drug-resistant pathogens that have acquired new resistance mechanisms, leading to antimicrobial resistance, continue to threaten our ability to treat common infections,” Chiwenga said in a speech read on his behalf by his deputy John Mangwiro.
“Especially alarming is the rapid global spread of multi and pan-resistant bacteria (also known as ‘superbugs’) that cause infections which cannot be treated with existing antimicrobial medicines such as antibiotics.
“This has led to more difficult to treat infections and more deaths hence new antibacterials are urgently needed.
“In the absence of new antibacterials, medical procedures, such as surgery, including caesarean sections or hip replacements, cancer chemotherapy, and organ transplantation, will become riskier.”
Global evidence shows that, based on current trends, global trends related to AMR would rise from 700 000 to 10 million a year by 2050.
“I must stress that the AMR response requires a whole of society approach, hence all of us are called upon to play our part in the prevention and control of AMR, and that includes using medicines rationally, maintaining optimal hand hygiene, avoiding procuring medicines from the informal markets and ensuring that our environment is hygienic and free from disease-causing agents such as garbage and waste,” Chiwenga added.
“AMR is a threat to the current medical achievements. Let us come together as a family, community, nation and as the world and to spread awareness and stop the resistance.
“Now is the time to take action to protect ourselves, starting with you as an individual, as health professionals, as policy makers and as different industries and sectors.”
Chiwenga reiterated that medical practitioners should not use ‘‘a hammer to kill a fly’’ and people must not to take over the counter medication as it has consequences to how the body responds to antibiotics in the future.
The event comes after the world commemorations of the World Antimicrobial Awareness Week, which is held annually between November 18-24 since 2015.
The commemorations provide an opportunity to raise awareness of antimicrobial resistance worldwide, as well as to encourage best practices among the public, health workers and policy makers in order to avoid the emergence and spread of drug-resistant infections.
Two programmes have also been secured, the Fleming Fund Grant and the Multi-Partner Trust Fund Grant, both supported by the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Sweden.
The Fleming Fund Grant, which amounts to the tune of £4 million, has also seen Zimbabwe continue scaling up the capacity of laboratories mandated to analyse target pathogens.
Thus far, NMRL and the Ventral Veterinary Laboratory have been renovated. The Multi-Partner Trust Fund’s contribution to the tune of US$1million, on the other hand, provides support to a number of the strategic priorities in the AMR National Action Plan.
by
Rumbidzai Ngwenya
STAFF WRITER
