In the midst of the global conflict with COVID19 Pandemic, most of the people are still in heedlessness of the danger of ongoing antibiotic resistance pandemic, which on a global scale, is as important and risk abiding as the COVID19 if not exceeding it. Hundreds of thousands of patients worldwide die each year from complications associated with antimicrobial resistance infections such as pneumonia, TUBERCULOSIS, and blood Poisoning.
On this regard, the Faculty of Health Sciences at the Islamic University has arranged for the fifth year in a row the activities of the World Antibiotic Awareness Week campaign with support and participation of the World Health Organization, Doctor without borders, Association Society for Microbiology and the Palestinian Medical Relief Society. the chief goals for this is to stop any further emergence and spread of antibiotic-resistant infections and to rationalize the overuse of antibiotics in human healthcare, veterinary and agriculture as well as to encourage best practices among the general public, health workers and policy makers particularly in Palestine.
The week has encompassed several awareness and scientific activities on social media that vary to include a symposium where researchers worked together to come out with a sustainable results and recommendations for best use of antibiotics. Some state-of-the-art topics such as bacterial resistance to antibiotics and their relationship with children and COVID 19, as well as, their impacts on human, animal, plant and environmental health were in the kernel of research. The world health organization set the plan for the 2020 Awareness Week as follows:
For the first day, the participants held on the 18th of November a symposium entitled of ” Bacterial Resistance to Antibiotics”. The following day was allotted to tackle the topic of water, sanitation and clean and wash. The third day was specialized to discuss the horizons of bacterial resistance to antibiotics and their relationship with children, while their relationship with COVID19 was on the fourth day. The fifth day was entitled the “Role of midwives and nurses in preventing bacteria resistance to antibiotics”. Whereas, the topic of “Bacteria resistance to antibiotics and transsexual diseases” was tackled in the sixth da. The seventh and last day was dealing with the topic “ bacterial resistance to antibiotics and their impacts on human, animal, plant and environmental health”.
This campaign was being led and disseminated carrying a logo of “ Handle with care ” which reflects the overall message that antibiotics are a valuable resource that must be preserved and should not be prescribed except by specialists to treat infections caused by bacteria. However, and as bacteria resistance grows in a wider range of drugs, the stockholders have widened the horizons of this campaign from antibiotics to all antimicrobials making The theme thereby for 2020 Awareness Week to be “United to preserve antimicrobials.”
The ASM Ambassador and coordinator of this week at the IUG Professor AbdelRaouf Almnama said in a statement that the antimicrobial resistance is in “the crux” of the global most dangerous pandemics and needs a swiftly collective effort locally and globally to combat this dilemma.
