REPORT
ANTIMICROBIAL RESISTANCE
Antibiotics: an All-Party Parliamentary Health Group meeting
Antimicrobial resistance is high on the list of priorities for the government’s Chief Medical Officer, as a recent All Party Parliamentary Group meeting demonstrated. Ruhi Siddiqui reports.
The IBMS President Elect, Nick Kirk, was invited by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Antibiotics, along with the All Party Parliamentary Health Group, to a special presentation given by the Chief Medical Officer (CMO), Professor Dame Sally Davies, who discussed the government’s five-year strategy on antimicrobial resistance. The overall aim of the All-Part
Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Antibiotics is to influence the fight against antimicrobial resistance to ensure political and financial commitment to address the issues in proportion to the global need. The meeting was opened by Jamie Reed MP and included short presentations given by the CMO and Claire Boville, policy lead for antibiotic strategy at the Department of Health.
CRITICAL RISK In her first annual report, the CMO stated that the problem of microbes becoming increasingly resistant to the most powerful drugs should be ranked alongside terrorism and climate change on the list of critical risks to the nation. She set out her commitment to champion the area of antimicrobial resistance with the intention to raise awareness of this important subject, and gave an overview of the history of antimicrobial resistance, which dates back to Alexander Fleming who in 1928 predicted the possibility of resistance arising. This can be seen today in tuberculosis (TB), Klebsiella and particularly Neisseria gonorrhoeae.
Dame Sally called for a number of actions 704 THE BIOMEDICAL SCIENTIST
to tackle the threat to ensure effective conservation of antibiotic usage to reduce the challenges of resistance developing. These actions would be likely to include tighter restrictions on how GPs prescribe antibiotics for their patients, making sure antibiotics are only prescribed when absolutely necessary. Of particular concern is the proportion of antibiotics sold without prescription and used in agriculture for farmed animals and fish. A significant challenge is that very few new drugs are left to replace the antibiotics to which microorganisms are becoming resistant. In addition, no new classes of antibiotic have been developed since 1987 and none are in development across the world. The large pharmaceutical companies have moved out of developing new antibiotics because there is little profit to be made in developing expensive new drugs that will only be taken in short courses, compared, for example, to a drug for blood pressure, which may have lifelong use for patients. To address this shortfall, the government may need to work in partnership with the pharmaceutical companies in the national interest. Politicians in the UK should prioritise antimicrobial resistance as a major area of concern and include it on the national risk register.
THE WAY FORWARD
In setting out how the government intends to respond to the challenges outlined by the CMO, Claire Boville reported that the government is committed to taking forward
Klebsiella pneumoniae, see here growing on MacConkey agar, is just one of the organisms showing resistance to antimicrobial agents.
all recommendations made in the CMO’s report. The government’s key aims are to communicate effectively, improve antibiotic stewardship and develop new antibiotics in partnership with pharmaceutical companies. The question-and-answer session was very informative, with a cross-section of attendees from the pharmaceutical and academic worlds debating the way forward. Clearly, there will need to be a multi-agency and multiprofessional approach, and the IBMS will continue to engage with policy-makers to ensure that appropriate expertise is brought to bear on this significant issue.
Ruhi Siddiqui (
ruhi.siddiqui@
phe.gov.uk) is head of the Standards Unit, External Quality Assurance Department, Public Health England, and is a new member of the IBMS Medical Microbiology Advisory Panel.
DECEMBER 2013
CDC
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