You are here

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
EAHP position paper
Infectious diseases and antimicrobial resistance
  1. Darija Kuruc Poje1,
  2. Nenad Miljković2,
  3. Piera Polidori3,
  4. Stephanie Kohl4
  1. 1Hospital Pharmacy, General Hospital Dr Tomislav Bardek, Koprivnica, Croatia
  2. 2Hospital Pharmacy, Institute of Orthopaedics Banjica, Belgrade, Serbia
  3. 3Hospital Pharmacy Complex Operational Unit, Azienda Ospedaliera Ospedali Riuniti Villa Sofia Cervello, Palermo, Italy
  4. 4Policy & Advocacy, European Association of Hospital Pharmacists, Brussels, Belgium
  1. Correspondence to Stephanie Kohl, Policy & Advocacy, European Association of Hospital Pharmacists, Brussels 1200, Belgium; Stephanie.Kohl{at}eahp.eu

http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/ejhpharm-2023-003920

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    Making a difference through prudent use to ensure efficient therapies for patients with life-threatening infections

    Combatting infectious diseases requires the implementation of a comprehensive intervention package comprised of measures including but not limited to prudent anti-infective use, vaccination and stewardship. To maintain the efficacy of antimicrobial drugs and to prevent the further spread of antimicrobial resistance, the European Association of Hospital Pharmacists (EAHP) urges an interprofessional approach in the healthcare setting and during the transition of care. Hospital pharmacists in Europe are ready to champion infection prevention and contribute and promote the prudent use of antimicrobials through the enforcement of antimicrobial stewardship (AMS). To improve patient outcomes proactive steps need to be taken.

    Stewardship

    Strengthening of prudent use of antimicrobials in human medicine

    The emergence of antibiotic resistance is widely recognised as a major public health problem. According to the European Commission and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), the number of patients in the EU who die each year as a result of infections caused by resistant bacteria increased from 25 000 in 2017 to 35 000 in 2020.1 2 In the last decades there has been a dramatic growth in the ability of a microorganism to stop an antimicrobial from working against it. As a consequence, only a limited number of antibiotics are available for the treatment of infections caused by resistant bacteria. Other consequences for patients are that infections persist, which results in longer hospital stays, higher healthcare costs and an increased risk of the infection spreading to others. Thus, significant inter-professional actions are needed to ensure standard treatments and prevention of serious diseases with effective and safe medicines that are quality assured, used appropriately, and accessible to all who need them.

    The escalating threat of antimicrobial resistance is a global public health concern and now seriously jeopardises the effectiveness of standard treatments, rendering some ineffective for their approved indications. AMS teams are an indispensable tool that promote …

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Commissioned; internally peer reviewed.

    • Author note This position paper was approved and adopted by the delegates of the 53rd EAHP General Assembly in June 2023.