Each November, World Antibiotic Awareness Week (WAAW) aims to increase global awareness of antibiotic resistance and to encourage best practices among the general public, health workers and policy makers to avoid the further emergence and spread of antibiotic resistance.
Since their discovery, antibiotics have served as the cornerstone of modern medicine. However, the persistent overuse and misuse of antibiotics in human and animal health have encouraged the emergence and spread of antibiotic resistance, which occurs when microbes, such as bacteria, become resistant to the drugs used to treat them.
The theme “Stewards for the Future: Stop overuse and misuse of antibiotics” builds on previous awareness campaigns and links it to the new vision of WHO for the Region as well as the new Antimicrobial Resistance Regional Framework.
Promoting the idea of ‘Stewards for the Future’ highlights the need to take action today to mitigate the impact of drug resistance in the future. The stewards play the role of change agent to stop overuse and misuse of antibiotics
in different sectors, one of the key challenges in the Region. The terms stewards also refers to antimicrobial stewardship programmes, a key intervention to fight AMR.
Through the campaign, every single individual can identify him/herself as a steward for the future and together all stewards are promoting a movement or collective action on AMR.
At the WHO Western Pacific Regional Committee meeting in October 2019 a new Framework for Accelerating Action to Fight Antimicrobial Resistance in the Western Pacific Region was adopted. The framework considers these operational shifts as new ways of working in the Region to slow the spread of AMR and avert its impact.
The Framework will guide countries to implement sustained and future-oriented solutions with actions contextualised to their needs and situation through broad societal participation and movements.
- to strengthen systems as foundation for sustainable actions;
- to work beyond health;
- to take actions today, guided by their vision of the future; and
- to build solutions from the ground up, while ensuring country impact.
