European Antibiotic Awareness Day (EAAD) is an annual public health initiative to raise awareness about the threat to public health of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and the importance of prudent antibiotic use.

It’s a time to remind everyone how valuable antibiotics are. Effective antimicrobials are absolutely essential to the practice of modern medicine. We need effective antimicrobials in order to enable medical interventions and treatments such as chemotherapy, c-section, and organ transplant.

Prudent use of antibiotics can help prevent or slow down resistant bacteria developing and help keep antibiotics effective for the use of future generations.

The latest data confirms within the European Union the number of patients infected by resistant bacteria is increasing. AMR poses one of the greatest risks to human health causing an annual estimate of 1.14 million deaths globally in 2021.

The essential role that pharmacists, working across all sectors including community, hospital and beyond, have in antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) is set out in the recently published HSE AMRIC Antimicrobial stewardship guidance for all healthcare settings (go to hse.ie/eng/services/list/2/gp/antibiotic-prescribing).

How you can help raise awareness

The HSE AMRIC team would like to provide some updates and resources that might be useful to pharmacists to help raise awareness around the importance of responsible antibiotic use in association with EAAD. Depending on the setting you work in, this might include raising awareness among other staff members (technicians, other healthcare professionals in your workplace or in facilities that you provide services for), providing staff education, hosting EAAD stands, displaying posters, sending an information email to mark EAAD or simply having a conversation with colleagues in your setting. As part of AMRIC’s communications plan to support EAAD, a Partnerpack for key stakeholders, including pharmacists, containing AMR information and facts, key messages, a news release and social media assets from @hselive — #keepantibioticsworking #antimicrobialresistance — will issue in advance. Your support and engagement is appreciated. You can also follow @AntibioticPresc for updates on antimicrobial prescribing guidelines and resources.

“Prudent use of antibiotics can help prevent or slow down resistant bacteria developing and help keep antibiotics effective for the use of future generations.”  

Community pharmacy

HSE AMRIC team are delighted to collaborate with the IPU with an EAAD letter for community pharmacy (included with your copy of the IPU Review this month), highlighting ways community pharmacists can mark the day and ongoing AMS work. This letter is accompanied by a poster on the adverse effects associated with antibiotics and a preferred antibiotic mouse mat.

Antimicrobial pharmacists

Hospital antimicrobial pharmacists and community antimicrobial pharmacists who have requested EAAD event packs will receive them in the coming weeks to assist with their local EAAD campaigns.

Health promotion resources

You can order further HSE AMRIC printed resources such as patient information leaflets and posters from Healthpromotion.ie if required (select ‘RESIST’ under the topic search feature to view AMRIC resources).

IIOP webinar

HSE AMRIC will host an educational webinar in collaboration with the IIOP on Wednesday 23 October 2024 at 8.00pm. The webinar is titled ‘A focus on antimicrobial stewardship in advance of European Antibiotic Awareness Day on 18 November’, and will include the following speakers:

• Marie Philbin, Chief Antimicrobial Pharmacist, HSE National AMRIC team — national update on AMS and the role of the pharmacist;
• Mary Kelly, Chief II Pharmacist, AMRIC Acutes, Office of the National Director Access and Integration — AMS in the acute hospital setting; and
• Mala Shah, Chief II Antimicrobial Pharmacist, HSE Access and Integration, Quality and Patient Safety — AMS in the community setting.

The recording will be made available on the IIOP website.

Pharmacist Antimicrobial Stewardship Network (PAMS-net)

A simple action you can take to learn more about AMS is to join the PAMS-net. The PAMS-net is an all-inclusive network for pharmacists, with current membership of 258 pharmacists drawn from all professional backgrounds including community pharmacy, hospital pharmacy, education and research, and many other roles. The vision of the network is a more joined up approach to AMS across the pharmacy profession. You can log into the PAMS-net discussion form on PAMS-net webpage on IIOP.ie. To access the discussion forum using these links you must be enrolled in the forum and logged in to your IIOP account.

References available on request.