Brussels, 26/10/2015 (Agence Europe) - As part of the Luxembourg Presidency of the Council of the European Union, the Transatlantic Taskforce on Antimicrobial Resistance (TATFAR) met in Luxembourg on 22 and 23 October 2015 to debate progress in this partnership, which is high on the agenda of the European Commission's Director-General for Health. The European and US representatives also defined what action to put in place over the next five years.
In his speech, the Commissioner for Health, Vytenis Andriukaitis, highlighted the danger of the overconsumption of antibiotics and stated: “We have to raise public awareness on antibiotics overuse and misuse. It is a time ticking bomb, one of the greatest challenges facing humankind today”. The Luxembourg Minister for Health, Lydia Mutsch, explained: “We need to define a single and integrated approach for the human and animal sector that takes into account all the different dimensions”.
Commissioner Andriukaitis opened the debates with the two co-presidents of TATFAR, John F. Ryan, from the European Commission's Public Health Directorate and Jimmy Kolker, from the US Department of Health and Human Services. The partners highlighted the enormous challenges in the fight against antimicrobial resistance and the fact that the global consumption of antibiotics in human medicine “increased by almost 40 % between 2000 and 2010”. Antibiotics are overused in the veterinary sector as well. Furthermore, the costs involved are extremely high, he continued, revealing an annual expenditure of €1.5 billion in the EU alone, due to a loss of productivity and an increase in healthcare costs.
The Luxembourg minister emphasised the need to have global solutions and sustainable global cooperation and called on the governments to increase their level of commitment and coordination, as well as strengthen their resources in an effort to improve information and awareness among professionals, patients and other stakeholders. She also called for national monitoring programmes to be introduced, which could help the research community develop new medicines. Commissioner Andriukaitis indicated that they needed to improve prevention and market monitoring, as well as increase research and incentives for developing new antibiotics. He also added that robust international cooperation between the different institutions active in this area, beyond the US and EU, was the “key” to success. In conclusion, Kolker highlighted the progress made in the work carried out by TATFAR, as well as the improved mutual understanding of the action and approaches that were sometimes at odds between the EU and US, including improvements in learning about the best practices of the respective partners. This had also helped to define a research agenda and common vocabulary, as well is identify existing shortcomings in scientific know-how. (Original version in French by Isabelle Lamberty)
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