World Antimicrobial Awareness Week 2022
Preventing antimicrobial resistance together
14–28 November 2022
World Antimicrobial Awareness Week is a global campaign that takes place annually from 18 to 24 November to raise awareness and understanding of antimicrobial resistance (AMR).
The theme of this year’s campaign is “Preventing antimicrobial resistance together”, under the slogan “Antimicrobials: handle with care”.
The campaign this year specifically aims to:
- raise awareness and understanding of antimicrobial resistance as a threat to global health security and to prevent infections by encouraging people to wash their hands regularly, prepare food hygienically, avoid close contact with sick people, and keep vaccinations up to date, all of which can affect the control or spread of AMR at home, at the workplace or in health care settings;
- encourage behavioural change and promote the adoption of best practices among the general public, health workers and policy-makers to mitigate the risk and the further emergence and spread of drug-resistant infections;
- promote awareness of AMR as everyone’s responsibility:
- Individuals (only use antibiotics prescribed by a certified health professional and prevent infections through hand washing, covering your nose and mouth when sneezing, getting vaccinated)
- Health care workers (only prescribe and dispense antibiotics when they are needed and according to current guidelines)
- Policy-makers (strengthen policies, programmes and implementation of infection prevention and control measures to prevent and control AMR and preserve the effectiveness of antimicrobials.
The AMR global crisis has additionally been fuelled by the COVID-19 pandemic due to the inappropriate use of antibiotics to treat COVID-19 patients, disruptions to infection prevention and control practices in overwhelmed health facilities and diversion of human and financial resources from actions to monitor and respond to the threat.
The World Health Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the World Organisation for Animal Health and the United Nations Environment Programme, known collectively as the Quadripartite, have adopted the One Health approach to address the challenge of responding to AMR – they promote practices that support collective and coordinated action among different sectors in a more effective, efficient and sustainable way to ensure an improved integrated response to AMR.
The One Health approach is a multisectoral initiative that aims to address a complex array of priority public health threats, including AMR, through recognition that the health of humans, animals and the environment is interconnected. The growing threat of AMR exemplifies this.
Under the theme “Preventing antimicrobial resistance together” WHO calls on all sectors to encourage the prudent use of antimicrobials and to strengthen preventive measures to address AMR.
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