4 December 2023 – Jordan’s new 3-year national action plan to combat antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has been launched. The Ministry of Health, working with national stakeholders, developed the plan for 2023–2025 with the support of the WHO Country Office in Jordan. His Excellency Professor Dr Feras Hawari, Minister of Health, launched the plan on behalf of Her Royal Highness Princess Muna Al-Hussein.

“Antimicrobial resistance is often referred to as a silent tsunami. It is rarely recorded as a direct cause of death, but we now have reliable estimates of the burden we face,” said Dr Jamela Al-Raiby, WHO Representative to Jordan. “Estimates of the global burden of disease indicate that in 2019 the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region witnessed 431 000 deaths resulting from antibiotic resistance, with 115 000 of these cases directly attributable to bacterial resistance. We in Jordan are not far from these numbers.”

The latest plan aims to boost national response and coordination to combat AMR. It addresses the issues that prevented the first AMR plan’s full implementation while building on its successes from 2018 to 2022. The new plan was devised through a national participatory consultation process, a situation analysis of implementation barriers and drivers, and an evaluation of the previous plan’s implementation.

As a result, the new AMR national action plan is split into 5 main themes: raising awareness, strengthening surveillance, preventing infections, rationalizing the use of antimicrobials, and support for AMR research. Jordan is the second country in the Region, after Saudi Arabia, to endorse a second edition of its AMR national action plan.

“I extend my thanks to Her Royal Highness Princess Muna Al-Hussein, for her patronage, and to His Excellency Professor Dr Feras Hawari, Minister of Health, for his special attention to this problem and his keenness to support efforts to address it,” Dr Al-Raiby added. “I also thank all the national bodies and international organizations involved for their effort, support and participation in planning and implementing the provisions of this plan under the One Health umbrella and approach.”

At the launch event, held as part of World AMR Awareness Week 2023, the Minister of Health also launched the “National AMR Surveillance Report 2022” and the updated “National Guidelines for Infection Prevention and Control”.