Education, awareness and behaviour change

Objective 1 of the Global Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) is to improve awareness and understanding of AMR through effective communication, education and training.

Antimicrobial stewardship is an important tool in the fight against AMR. It refers to interventions designed to promote the optimal use of antibiotic agents, including drug choice, dosing, and route and duration of administration.

To address AMR, all clinicians and health-care workers must become stewards of antimicrobials by prescribing them appropriately and educating their patients and colleagues on the proper use of this increasingly scarce medical resource.

WHO/Europe has developed an online course on antimicrobial stewardship for a competency-based approach. It is free and accessible on OpenWHO (see link below) in English, French and Italian (a Russian version is planned).

There are currently more than 40,000 people enrolled in the course. Six weeks after the launch of the Italian version in October 2019 it reached a milestone of 11 000 doctors enrolled, and 8000 have successfully completed the course.

World Antibiotic Awareness Week (WAAW) (see link below) aims to increase awareness of global AMR and to encourage best practices among the public, health workers and policy-makers. WAAW takes place each November.