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Summit Urges Action in Combatting Antibiotic Resistance

A panel of international experts in infectious diseases has issued an urgent call to action to combat the increasingly serious problem of antibiotic resistance. Noting that resistance has reached crisis proportions in many communities, the panel emerged from the day-long Summit on Antimicrobial Resistance with specific proposals for healthcare professionals and the public.

Participants in the Summit, including many community physicians, noted that antibiotic resistance is increasingly associated with clinical failure, risks of disease complications, and the greater use of broader spectrum antibiotics in situations where they are not needed. The Summit's blueprint for action included the following recommendations:

• Healthcare providers and the public should be targeted by an aggressive educational campaign to improve their understanding of the science and ramifications of antibiotic prescribing, and the importance of judicious use of these drugs to preserve their power.
• When appropriate, the restrained use of antibiotics must be encouraged to avoid the production of resistant strains. Physicians must understand that there is support for the non-use of antibiotics in appropriate situations, such as in the treatment of viral infections.
• Physicians must use narrow spectrum antibiotics in simple infections when appropriate, reserving broad spectrum drugs only for infections that are more serious.
• Physicians need to launch their own major educational effort aimed at their own patients. In just two to three minutes, a patient can be educated on why antibiotics are or are not an appropriate therapeutic option in particular clinical situation. These one-on-one educational "moments" can reduce the patient pressure that clinicians feel to prescribe.
• Pharmaceutical companies should be encouraged to intensify their efforts to develop new and novel antibiotics. Once available, these new compounds must be used prudently or they, too, will develop resistance problems.
• Healthcare professionals need to recognize that local solutions work locally - that is, despite the global scope of the problem, action and change in one's own community and hospital can make a difference, helping to ensure the health of the local constituency.
• State-of-the-art information technology must be used to implement a sophisticated surveillance and reporting system in every community. This system can close information gaps and alert public health officials and physicians to the latest data on resistant organisms in their locality, allowing prescribing habits to be adjusted appropriately.

Public health leaders, physicians, other healthcare professionals, pharmaceutical companies, and the public all have key roles to play in solving this serious problem. If we all work together in the new millennium, antibiotic resistance can be managed successfully.