The European Commission is continuing to fight resistance to antimicrobials (AMR) and began a public consultation on Friday 27 January to help it draw up an action plan on AMR to be unveiled this year, before the summer break.
Resistance to antimicrobials is micro-organisms’ ability to resist treatment with antibiotics which used to eliminate them in the past. According to European Commission estimates, AMR is responsible each year in the EU for 25,000 deaths among human beings, costing more than €1.5 billion a year in terms of healthcare and lost productivity.
The public consultation runs until 28 April and composes two questionnaires, one for experts and civil services, and one for citizens. The answers will feed in to the future action plan that will replace the one for 2011-2016. The latter covers seven priority domains of action (developing alternatives, information, research and development etc.) and twelve tangible measures (preventing nosocomial infections, raising awareness, etc.).
A European Commission’ roadmap says that the new action plan will be based on assessment of the 2011-2016 action plan, focussing on activities with clear added value, with the aim of preserving the effectiveness of antimicrobials for human beings and animals and identifying coherent action to this end. The consultation can be found at: https://goo.gl/pVaQRh (Original version in French Sophie Petitjean)