Africa-Press – Tanzania. UNITED Kingdom (UK) British physician and academic administrator Dame Sally Claire Davies has lauded Tanzania’s initiative of combating Antimicrobial resistance (AMR).
In a high-level meeting of the United Nations (UN) on AMR held in the US recently, the former UK Chief Medical Officer referred to the School Clubs project in Dodoma, Tanzania as an important example of creative, community-focused support.
Professor Davies lauded the initiative for engaging and empowering local citizens and communities, education and training and engagement with local and national policy makers and media.
“We can look to communities that are learning and sharing best practices like the creative school clubs educating children about superbugs in Dodoma, Tanzania,” she said.
AMR occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites change over time.
As a result of drug resistance, antibiotics and other antimicrobial medicines become ineffective and infections become increasingly difficult or impossible to treatincreasing the risk of disease spread, severe illness and death.
In Tanzania, Roll Back Antimicrobial Resistance Initiative (RBA-I), is one of the few nongovernmental organizations with a special focus on containing AMR and is spearheaded by Erick Venant, a young pharmacist based in Dodoma.
“It pleases me to hear our work getting cited as a positive example at the UN High level meeting, it’s a recognition of every day actions taken by RBA Initiative team and our stakeholders to contain AMR,” explained Mr Venant, in a telephone interview with ‘Daily News’.
According to the young pharmacist, tackling AMR calls for collective action and using creative ways to promote positive behaviors in communities that will prevent the spread and emergency of AMR.
Two years ago, the young Tanzanian got himself in the annals of history last week after scooping the prestigious ‘Legacy Award’ in memory of Princess Diana.
Mr Venant was honored with the ‘The Legacy Award from Earl Spencer, Princess Diana’s brother for his work on combating Antimicrobial resistance, committed to raise the awareness about this emerging global health threat where he led a nationwide anti-microbial resistance campaign in 23 administrative regions of Tanzania, which educated over 49,000 students and teachers in 114 secondary schools.
Antimicrobials play an essential role in combatting infectious diseases in both human and veterinary medicine.
However, The World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared that antimicrobial resistance is now one of the top 10 global public health threats.
