Strengthening implementation of National Action Plans through a One Health AMR full economic costing exercise
Environment
Interventions
Surveillance
Therapeutics
Transmission
- Chantal Morel, University Hospital Bonn, Germany (Coordinator)
- Finola Leonard, University College Dublin, Ireland (Partner)
- Chisomo Msefula, University of Malawi, College of Medicine, Malawi (Partner)
- Luigia Scudeller, Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria di Bologna, Italy (Partner)
- Lloyd Matowe, Eden University, Zambia (Partner)
- Herman Goosens, University of Antwerp, Belgium (Partner)
Antibiotic resistance costs lives and money. Yet if we don't have a good grasp of the numbers we will never know where it lies in terms of our other national priorities. In Africa we have especially little evidence on how people, animals, and the environment are affected by it. So those who make decisions do not see it at a particular problem -- and, as a consequence, those who hold the purse strings in government do not fund the necessary efforts to combat antibiotic resistance. This project will estimate the full economic burden imposed by antibiotic resistance (epidemiological and financial) in Malawi and Zambia in order to fill this evidence gap. Findings from this work should help enhance political will to take greater action. It will also allow more informed decisions to be made about how best to tackle antibiotic resistance locally by calculating the important cost-related numbers that allow different strategies to be compared. Crucially this project will bring together the key people needed to make real and further progress on this issue each of these two countries. And, if successful, Malawi and Zambia will be setting the example for how to combat antibiotic resistance in other parts of Africa.