Global Consultative Meeting: WHO Policy Guidance on Integrated Antimicrobial Stewardship Activities in Human Health
On 2 and 3 December 2020, Moska Hellamand, Researcher at the Access to Medicine Foundation, participated in the virtual Global Consultative Meeting on WHO Policy Guidance on Integrated Antimicrobial Stewardship Activities in Human Health. As a Rapporteur, Moska discussed key recommendations on Surveillance, Monitoring and Evaluation based on her group's discussions.
The objective of the Global Consultative Meeting was to review the draft WHO Policy Guidance on integrated antimicrobial stewardship activities in human health. Diverse stakeholders met virtually to finalise guidance and define a set of actions and considerations for the implementation of antimicrobial stewardship activities from an integrated and programmatic approach to human health.
Moska participated both as a stakeholder and also as a Rapporteur to take detailed notes during the group's discussion about the Surveillance, Monitoring and Evaluation section of the WHO draft Policy Guidance. At the end of the meeting, Moska presented the group's main recommendations on this section. One of the main recommendations was to emphasise the need for guidelines on how to use surveillance data in developing stewardship plans and policies. This point complements the 2020 AMR Benchmark's key finding on companies sharing raw data on the spread of resistance because such data and insights are valuable puzzle pieces, for example for developing treatment guidelines to aid doctors in making clinical decisions.
The meeting participants were WHO staff working at all levels, representatives of the Ministries of Health and other government agencies, development partners and regional experts. The outcomes of the consultation meeting will be used to further enrich the draft policy guidance on integrated antimicrobial stewardship activities for human health before it is finalized for dissemination.