15 June 2021
Pandemic prevention & preparedness: how should the COVID response aid efforts to contain & control antimicrobial resistance?
This meeting will explore how the UK’s response to COVID might now be used to help address the “slow-moving” pandemic of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Our speakers will provide an expert overview before alighting on a few specific opportunities that rank high on the impact/feasibility chart – and that could be used as recommendations in the APPG report that follows this meeting. For example:
- Diagnostics: could the large-scale introduction of molecular testing provide value for money and improvements in the use of antibiotics and patient care?
- National targets: there’s been a lot of talk about antibiotic use, impact on other infections, and concerns about the antibiotic supply chain – but exactly how much progress is being made in each of those areas?
- New treatments: the world has shown how quickly it can act when it needs to – so why hasn’t the same urgency been given to the development of new drugs or vaccines to ameliorate the impact of AMR?
- Infection prevention and control: is it time to transform our approach to IPC in hospitals?