Global Handwashing day

WASH YOUR HANDS
-After you come home from work and school
-After you come home from a visit to public and crowded places
-After visiting a toilet
-After holdong your hand against your mouth while coughing or sneezing
-After handling animals
-Before preparing or serving or eating food
-Before and after being with somebody who is ill

Coughing and sneezing

OTTO CARS wins 2010 APUA award.

The Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics (APUA) has named Otto Cars, (on the right in the photograph) M.D., chairman of ReAct – Action on Antibiotic Resistance, based in Uppsala, Sweden, as recipient of its 2010 leadership award.“Otto Cars has provided outstanding leadership in the worldwide effort to contain antibiotic resistance,” said APUA President Stuart B. Levy. “His energetic commitment to fostering international political action on the global aspects and consequences of antibacterial resistance continues to make an important difference, and we are delighted to recognize his vital work.”

International conference at Uppsala University, Sweden

``The Global Need for Effective Antibiotics - Moving towards Concerted Action``
You are welcome to watch here the webcast of the opening session on Monday, September 6th starting at 13.00 CET.
13:00 – 13:15:

Uppsala Choir School, Conductor: Gunnel Haulin
Introduction by Conference Moderator Niklas Ekdal
13:15 – 13:40:

Welcome Addresses
Anders Hallberg, President, Uppsala University
H.R.H. Victoria, Crown Princess of Sweden
Karin Johansson, State Secretary of Health, Sweden
Andreas Heddini, Executive Director, ReAct
13:40 – 14:10

Setting the Scene: The Global Picture of Antibiotic Resistance
Otto Cars, Professor, Chairman of ReAct, Sweden
Zulfiqar Bhutta, Professor and Department Chair, Aga Khan University, Pakistan
14:10 – 14:25

Reflections from a Global Perspective
Guénaël Rodier, Director, Division of Communicable Diseases, Health Security, & Environment, World Health Organization, Regional Office forEurope

IIMAR –ReAct : Agreement for cooperation on antimicrobial resistance management

`Indian Initiative for Management for Antibiotic Resistance` – IIMAR -and `Action on Antibiotic Resistance`- ReAct (Sweden) have entered into an `Agreement for cooperation` to work together towards developing programmes for promotion of management of Antibiotic Resistance in particular in India and also at international level.

The activities will generally focus on

• Antibiotic resistance awareness and management - Field activities
• Antibiotic resistance awareness and management -Web based activities
• Aid to post-graduate students in Indian Universities for projects on infections, resistant bacteria, resistance management and similar projects
• To promote, network and cooperate with South Asian, South-East Asian and Asian Initiatives on antibiotic resistance management
  

While ReAct will put forward funds (about Rs 10 Lakhs) for this programme and will also make available its expertise, IIMAR will actively pursue the activities in India and the Asian region. ReAct has a vast experience in promoting management of Antibiotic Resistance at the national level in Sweden and is also internationally working towards achieving the goal.

All concerned are requested to please come forward to take part in this programme to conduct these activities at their home base. While you volunteer your time and efforts, IIMAR provides support and funds.

Contact: antibio.resistance@gmail.com

SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands

SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands is part of a major global effort led by the World Health Organization (WHO), to support health-care workers to improve hand hygiene and thus stop the spread of life-threatening, health care-associated infection (HCAI)
The SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands annual initiative is part of a major global effort led by the World Health Organization (WHO) to support health-care workers to improve hand hygiene in health care and thus support the prevention of often life threatening HAI.
This initiative is part of the WHO Patient Safety First Global Patient Safety Challenge, ‘Clean Care is Safer Care’ programme aimed at reducing HAI worldwide, which was launched in October 2005. The clear and central feature of Clean Care is Safer Care thus far has been to target efforts on the importance of clean hands in health care. The programme has galvanised action at many levels including, as at November 2009, Ministers of Health from 121 countries having pledged commitment to reducing HAI and support the work of WHO. Thirty eight nations/sub-nations have also started hand hygiene campaigns during this time.
SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands was deemed a natural next phase of the Clean Care is Safer Care programme, moving the call to action from a country pledge of commitment to the point of patient care. The central core of SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands is that all health-care workers should clean their hands at the right time and in the right way.
SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands incorporates a global annual day to focus on the importance of improving hand hygiene in health care as well as WHO providing information and materials to support these efforts and sharing information on the activities of the many others who take action at local, national and regional level.
A suite of tools and materials have been created from a base of existing research and evidence and from rigorous testing as well as working closely with a range of experts in the field. The tools aim to help the translation into practice of a multimodal strategy for improving and sustaining hand hygiene in health care.

Second anniversary of the formation of IIMAR

11th March 2010 happens to be the second anniversary of the formation of IIMAR. The IIMAR- INDIAN INITIATIVE FOR MANAGEMENT OF ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE was formed on 11th March 2008 during the IX Sir Dorabaji Tata Symposium on Antimicrobial Resistance held at the JRD Tata Auditorium, IISC, Bangalore. At the small meetings of like minded persons held on the evenings of 10th and 11th March, everybody felt that resistance to antibiotics is assuming significant proportions in India and something needs to be done about it and thus IIMAR came into existence. Amongst the initial coordinators, myself and Dr Mira Shiva continue while Dr Sujith Chandy could not continue due to personal preoccupations.
India is a country of continental proportions and the problem was how to continue the existence of the initiative without any infrastructure and funds. That's where, I thought of creating a `virtual existence`- `the existence on the Internet`- which was free and only required my perseverance, and intellectual labour. For this, the facility of a blog web space, created by Google came very handy. It helped IIMAR to be in touch with all the members and also with everybody concerned about the ABR problem all over the world.
After some preliminary work three interconnected blogs were created, which came into being during the months of May-June 2008. Although I am working single-handedly, I have tried to improve on the blog contents thereafter continuously. From time to time new features have been added, the most recent being the `Indo-Asian antibiotic resistance scenario` and the `Global antibiotic resistance scenario`.
People are generally not pro-active in nature, but I appeal to you all to come forward with any help that you can give in this regard in any form- funds, contribution to blog, running a particular feature –anything you like.
Sincerely yours
A.J. Tamhankar

Detection of antibiotics in hospital effluents in India

Industrial production of antibiotics and their large scale availability is an important phenomenon of the 20th century. Easy availability of antibiotics made previously fatal diseases treatable and thereby contributed to improved health and well-being globally. However, the large scale use also had a potential to contaminate the environment, as after consumption, a considerable amount of antibiotics is not metabolized by the human body and excreted. These antibiotics ultimately enter the aquatic environment either as active compounds or metabolites. The likely adverse effects of these contaminants on aquatic ecosystem as well as the underlying public health implications are a very disturbing thought. Further, the effect of such a contamination on the development of bacterial resistance is also a matter of grave concern. Hospital effluent is an important contributory source of antibiotics to the environment. While information is available on antibiotic residue levels in hospital effluent from high-income countries, information on antibiotic residue levels in effluent from Indian hospitals is not available. This information gap is now no more.
A team of scientists from the R.D. Gardi Medical college, Ujjain, India (Vishal Diwan and A. J. Tamhankar) and from Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden ( Cecilia Stalsby Lundborg) have quantified the antibiotic residues in the effluents from two hospitals in the Ujjain district of Madhya Pradesh (with help from SIIR, Delhi). They found that antibiotics of all major groups are entering the aquatic environment through hospital effluent. They detected metronidazole, norfloxacin, sulphamethoxazole, ceftriaxone, ofloxacin, ciprofloxacin, levofloxacin and tinidazole in the range of 1.4–236.6 microgram/litre . The high concentration of fluoroquinolones in their results is a cause of special concern, as these can cause genetic modification of bacterial strains. The situation can become problematic in India because of resource constraints to treat wastewater for removal of antibiotic contaminants. More studies are needed in this area to bring out both – the problems and the solutions. (CURRENT SCIENCE, 97, NO. 12, 1752-1755; 25 DECEMBER 2009)

A Radio Talk by N.Ramesh - IIMAR`s Trichy coordinator on Antibiotic Resistance and IIMAR

On 7th January 2009, All India Radio Tiruchirappalli broadcasted at 7.00 AM, a talk in Tamil by N.Ramesh- IIMAR`s Trichy coordinator- on the topic " Antibiotic Resistance and IIMAR"
N.Ramesh is a Doctoral Research Scholar at the Department of Microbiology, School of Life Sciences,Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirappalli.