Containment of Antimicrobial Resistance - WHO Recommendations

1. Educate all groups of prescribers and dispensers (including drug sellers) in the importance of appropriate antimicrobial use and containment of antimicrobial resistance.
2. Promote targeted undergraduate and postgraduate educational programs for all health care workers, veterinarians, prescribers and dispensers on accurate diagnosis and management of common infections.
3. Encourage prescribers and dispensers to educate patients on antimicrobial use and the importance of adherence to prescribed treatments.
4. Improve antimicrobial use by supervision and support of clinical practices, especially diagnostic and treatment strategies.
5. Monitor prescribing and dispensing practices and utilize peer group or external standard comparisons to provide feedback and endorsement of appropriate antimicrobial prescribing.
6. Encourage development and use of guidelines and treatment algorithms to foster appropriate use of antimicrobials.
7. Empower formulary managers to limit antimicrobial use to the prescription of an appropriate range of selected antimicrobials.
8. Link professional registration requirements for prescribers and dispensers to requirements for training and continuing education.
9. Establish effective hospital therapeutics committees with responsibility for oversight of antimicrobial use in hospitals.
10. Develop and regularly update guidelines for antimicrobial treatment, prophylaxis, and hospital antimicrobial formularies.
11. Monitor antimicrobial usage, including quantity and patterns of use, and feed back results to prescribers.
12. Ensure on-site availability of microbiology laboratory services which are appropriately matched to the level of the hospital (e.g., secondary, tertiary).
13. Ensure performance and quality assurance of appropriate diagnostic tests, bacterial identification, antimicrobial susceptibility tests of key pathogens, and timely and relevant reporting of results.
14. Ensure that laboratory data are recorded (preferably on a database) and are used to produce clinically and epidemiologically useful surveillance reports of resistance patterns among common pathogens and infections in a timely manner and feed back to prescribers and the infection control programme.

keywords: MRSA, Antibiotic resistance, resistance, WHO, World Health Organisation, CLSI