Today the World Health Organization is launching a global campaign under the slogan ‘Combat Drug Resistance: No Action Today, No Cure Tomorrow’ with the aim of countering the ever more dangerous threat posed by the growth of antimicrobial resistance. This worldwide problem is hampering the effectiveness of antibiotics in treating serious and life-threatening infections such as malaria, tuberculosis and HIV.

The WHO is calling on governments and stakeholders to take urgent action to tackle this issue. As Dr Margaret Chan, the Director-General of WHO, makes clear: “In the absence of urgent corrective and protective actions, the world is heading towards a post-antibiotic era, in which many common infections will no longer have a cure and, once again, kill unabated.” This is because as bacteria develop resistance to the drugs intended to kill them, they are thriving and spreading, often prolonging disease and resulting in more complications that delay cure or prevent one and can pose a greater risk of death.

WHO’s call is reinforced by the publication of a policy package designed to stimulate governments and their partners to take appropriate actions to respond to drug resistance. The recommendations it contains centre around six poles:

• committing to a comprehensive, financed national plan with accountability and civil society engagement;
• strengthening surveillance and laboratory capacity;
• ensuring uninterrupted access to essential medicines of assured quality; 
• regulating and promoting rational use of medicines, including in animal husbandry, and ensuring proper patient care;
• enhancing infection prevention and control; and
• fostering innovations and research and development for new tools.

Policy Briefs: http://www.who.int/world-health-day/2011/policybriefs/en/index.html

In addition, this year the WHO will publish a reference book that will share experience from the field of combating anti-microbial resistance.

Combating Anti-microbial Resistance: Experiences from the Field 

For more information on World Health Day 2011 visit:
http://www.who.int/world-health-day/2011/en/index.html
 

What is the situation with the drugs being used to treat persons affected by leprosy?

Multi-drug therapy (MDT) has been used as the standard treatment to treat persons with leprosy since the 1980s. Between 1985 and the beginning of 2008 almost 15 million persons were diagnosed and cured of leprosy using either a combination of rifampicin and dapsone for those with paucibacillary leprosy or a combination of rifampicin, clofazimine and dapsone for individuals with multibacillary leprosy.

Dapsone resistance had become common in the 1970s leading to the development of MDT. Since the development of DNA sequencing methods several reports of rifampicin resistance have been published. This prompted WHO’s Global Leprosy Programme to initiate a Sentinel Surveillance Network in 2008 to monitor the situation. This monitoring is being carried out in Brazil, China, Columbia, India, Myanmar, Pakistan, Philippines, Viet Nam and Yemen with the collaboration of ten reference laboratories from Brazil, France, Japan, Korea, India, Switzerland and the USA. Some ILEP Members are involved, namely the Fondation Raoul Follereau, American Leprosy Missions and LEPRA Health in Action. In 2009 the Global Leprosy Programme published Guidelines for Global Surveillance of Drug Resistance in Leprosy. Although results obtained so far do not yet indicate a significant problem of rifampicin resistance, it is felt to be important to continue to collect data systematically and monitor trends carefully since a huge rise in incidence of resistance to rifampicin could threaten the success of the current leprosy control efforts.

Additionally, it is important to investigate the development of new drugs and new regimens for use in situations when any of the drugs making up MDT is contraindicated for reasons of resistance or toxicity.

 

 

Categories: International Collaboration, Technical information