Objectives of the webinar:
• To discuss how the WHO Model List of Essential Medicines (EML) Antibiotic User Guide could become an essential tool for the better management of patients with common infections, improving patient outcomes and quality of care, reducing inappropriate treatment and diagnostic tests and impacting on antimicrobial resistance (AMR).
• To address key problems on antibiotic selection focusing on what matters most: providing the best possible care to your patients especially in settings where robust local AMR data is lacking
• To explain why WHO developed the EML Antibiotic User Guide, how it was developed, and how it will be disseminated.
Background:
In the 2000s it was common to find in hospitals and ambulatory clinics in low- and middle-income countries a WHO antibiotic guide book used by health professionals as their primary resource for selecting the most appropriate antibiotic for acute infections at the point of care. After 20 years doctors still tell us how important this WHO publication has been in guiding their decisions and improving patient outcomes.
Since
2017, the WHO Model List of Essential Medicines (EML) has classified
antibiotics into Access, Watch and Reserve (AWaRe) categories as a tool
to improve antibiotic monitoring and stewardship.
The EML is now expanding its guidance on how best to use the AWaRE antibiotics,
developing a simple, easy to use guide for the optimal empiric choice of
antibiotic drug, dose and duration for children and adults in 35
community- and hospital-acquired clinical infections, including
symptomatic care and when antibiotics may not be needed.
The
EML Antibiotic User Guide also gives short helpful information on making
the clinical diagnosis, common causative pathogens and the impact of
resistance on antibiotic selection and the role of diagnostics (linking
with the WHO Model List of Essential In-Vitro Diagnostics). Updated
information on how to best target use of the last resort Reserve
antibiotics is given, along with general guidance on future community
stewardship goals for Access and Watch antibiotic use.
The
introduction of AWaRe into a clinical decision support resource, updating
and modernizing the WHO antibiotic guide book, has created a new
innovative product, developed with the rigor of a high-quality
methodological process and managed by an international working group of
leading specialists in infectious disease, antimicrobial resistance and
public health.
The EML Antibiotic User Guide will be presented as part of the next update of the Model List of Essential Medicines in April 2021 and launched mid-2021 in digital and print formats for wide dissemination and access.
Format:
Moderators:
• Hatim Sati, Department of Global Coordination & Partnership on AMR, WHO
• Lorenzo Moja, Department of Health Product Policy and Standards, WHO
Speakers:
• Haileyesus Getahun, Director of Global Coordination & Partnership on AMR, WHO
• Lorenzo Moja, Department of Health Product Policy and Standards, WHO
• Mike Sharland, EML Antibiotic Working Group Chair
• Anahi Dreser, National Institute of Public Health,
Mexico
• Loice Achieng, Infectious disease specialist, Kenyatta National Hospital, Kenya