Panel 5
15 November 2024, Jeddah
Q1 - How does your regional office contribute to the global fight AMR?
- Thank you very much. I’d like to start by thanking Dr. Kaseya and Dr. Walcott for their excellent keynote presentations. I’m very pleased to be sharing this stage with my fellow Regional Directors and WHO colleagues.
- Our countries in South-East Asia acknowledged AMR as a major global issue very early on, even before the endorsement of the global action plan on AMR.
- In 2011, the Ministers of Health in my region adopted the Jaipur Declaration, stating their determination to address the-then mounting issue of AMR.
- As the Regional Office, we use our strong presence in every SEARO country to advocate for greater political commitment and accelerated response to AMR.
- We assist our countries in their journey towards achieving national, regional and global responsibilities and targets. We bring in the latest know-how to our countries and help them engage, participate and report to regional and global systems and meetings.
- In addition to technical support, our Regional Office convenes regional and global donors, partners and collaborators to support our Member States. As you know, South-East Asia has the largest population of all WHO regions.
- Our countries have a rich and distinctive diversity in geography, economy and maturity of health systems. However, we may have a higher AMR burden than others. In SEAR, four million people died in 2019 due to sepsis as an immediate or intermediate cause of death. Of these deaths, between 0.39 and 1.41 million people died because of bacterial AMR.
- We also promote sharing success stories, learning experiences, AMR data and indicators among our countries, and beyond.
- Recently, my Regional Office facilitated the Asia Pacific Ministerial meeting (in May 2024), in collaboration with WHO WPRO and the government of Japan, where thirty Asia Pacific countries endorsed the Asia Pacific Joint Position Paper on AMR.
- We co-organised a side-event during UNGA High-Level on AMR, with Pan American Health Organization, the UN Foundation, and the Wellcome Trust, under the theme of fostering an equitable global response to AMR. The event emphasized that the solutions to AMR are already within reach but require coordination and multidisciplinary approaches.
Q2: How do Regional Offices play a unique role in health and AMR diplomacy, using their platforms to advocate for health equity and improved health outcomes for a patient-centred approach?
As I mentioned, my Regional Office has supported all the eleven of our countries. We will continue this support through:
- Advocating for more political commitment, and mobilization of financial and technical resources - both domestic and international
- Finalizing strategic regional products such as the regional AMR burden, AMR SEAR roadmap and Evidence Brief for Policy. The aim of these products is to provide countries with several evidence-based policy options that match their context and capacities to accelerate their actions and improve their national coordination to address AMR.
We have supported all eleven of our countries to:
- develop national action plans to combat AMR
- establish national multi-sectoral structures & committees
- enroll in the Global AMR surveillance system (GLASS) and report AMR and antimicrobial use data
My Regional Office will continue using health diplomacy and convening power through. We are:
- Collaborating with the regional offices of the Quadripartite (FAO, WOAH and UNEP) through the regional quadripartite AMR working group. The working group is part of the regional Quadripartite task force that implements the regional One-Health Joint Plan of Action.
- We are supporting our Member States to:
- Update their national action plans
- Strengthen their national AMR surveillance system (I am happy to let you know that Maldives reported their first national AMR data a few weeks ago to GLASS)
- Integrate an AMR People-centered approach to primary, secondary and tertiary healthcare (Indonesia and Thailand are actively performing that integration with our support)
- We are also monitoring progress and conducting situational analyses to evaluate AMR prevention and containment. The last report on this was published last year.
Q3. How can Regional Directors support countries in creating sustainable training programs for health workers and deploy education programmes to strengthen stewardship and capacity building efforts on AMR?
- AMR unfortunately has an uneven distribution of impact. Low- and middle-income countries are both particularly affected and at more risk.
- This is coupled with the uneven capacity and preparedness of these very same countries to deal with this issue.
- This creates the perfect storm – a very worrying combination of high impact and low capacity.
- We are working with our countries to integrate AMR education into the curricula of undergraduate students in medical faculties and universities in the region (including medicine, pharmacy, nursing and others).
- For the last two years, we have been promoting twining programs among healthcare facilities in our countries to build workforce capacity in antimicrobial stewardship: that is simply the right antimicrobial and right dose for the right patient, etc.
- We aim to expand these activities and are looking forward for our regional and global partners and collaborators to support us reaching more teams and expanding.
- It is worth noting that lack of access to appropriate, safe, effective and affordable antimicrobials and diagnostic tools, particularly in developing countries, is actually responsible for more deaths than AMR itself.
- Countries and societies should promote careful balance for affordable access to antimicrobials when needed, while implementing measures to avoid their irresponsible use.
Q4. Take-home message: What is your ONE recommendation to all our Ministers in the room in order enable capacity development nationally, regionally and globally?
- AMR is not distant, and not invisible anymore. It is here, and it is upon us.
- Low- and middle- income countries should not be forgotten or ignored.
- Let’s address it before it is too late. Together, we can slow the impact of this crisis.