New Alliance To Hold UN And Others Accountable For Antimicrobial Resistance Commitments

A new international alliance to support the United Nations Resolution on Antimicrobial Resistance was launched this week. The Conscience of Antimicrobial Resistance Accountability (CARA) aims to bring together organisations committing to reporting on mutually agreed upon indicators in countries around the world, and to hold the UN and other stakeholders accountable to their commitments.

CARA was created under the auspices of the Washington, DC-based Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy (CDDEP), an organisation conducting policy-oriented research on global health priorities, including antibiotic resistance.

According to CARA, the alliance “will work to hold the United Nations and other international bodies, national governments, the private sector, and civil society to the commitments they have made to ensure sustainable access to effective antimicrobials.”

Goals of CARA include surveillance, by supporting “accurate and methodologically consistent data collection, analysis and reporting of antibiotic resistance and consumption in humans and animals,” and research deepening the understanding of the current status of and trends in antimicrobial resistance and use.

Another goal is preserving effectiveness of antimicrobials by seeking greater coordination among all stakeholders in antimicrobials effectiveness, and using information about the underlying drivers of antimicrobial use “so as to contribute to the evolving definition of ‘appropriate antimicrobial use’.” In addition, judicious use of antimicrobials in agriculture should be reinforced, they said, in particular by limiting the use of medically important human antimicrobials in food animals, and phasing out antimicrobial use for growth promotion and routing disease prevention.

CARA is also promoting universal access to antimicrobials, and encourages the development of pharmaceutical products to sustain and advance effective prevention and treatment of infections. This goal includes the production of new antimicrobials and novel alternative therapies, and diagnostics to better diagnose infections and their resistance characteristics.

The initiative is also proposing the creation of a secretariat under the UN Secretary General to coordinate antimicrobial resistance policy across different UN agencies, with financial support and mechanisms for monitoring and reporting on measurable goals.

First Partners

First partners according to CARA are as follows:

• Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics (APUA)
• American Society for Microbiology
• Antibiotic Resistance Action Center (ARAC)
• Australasian Society for Infectious Diseases (ASID)
• Australian Society for Antimicrobials (ASA)
• British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (BSAC)
• CARB-X
• Cempra Inc
• Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy (CDDEP)
• Center for Global Development (CGD)
• Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP)
• Central University of Punjab
• CO-ADD (Community for Open Antimicrobial Drug Discovery)
• Commonwealth Medical Trust (Commat)
• Cranimal
• DRIVE-AB
• GARP-Kenya
• German Center for Infectious Disease Resarch (DZIF)
• Miercurea Ciuc Emergency County Hospital
• No More Epidemics
• Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH)
• Pew Charitable Trusts
• Saint Constantin Hospital
• Small World Initiative
• Spectrum Mobile Health Inc.
• United States Pharmacopeial Convention (USP)
• World Alliance Against Antibiotic Resistance (WAAAR)

According to the CDDEP website, a steering committee for CARA “has been formed from early entrants and will meet [in December] to finalise CARA’s structure and to negotiate a manageable list of the many possible indicators.”

A first global report is planned for September 2017, “which will set the baseline for the future,” it says.

The World Health Organization World Antibiotic Awareness Week is taking place from 14-20 November.

 

Image Credits: CARA