The Ghana National Awareness campaign geared toward educating the public about Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR), dubbed National AMR Awareness Campaign, was launched in March, 2020 in Accra-Ghana.
According to WHO, “Antimicrobial resistance is the ability of a microbe to resist the effects of medication that once could successfully treat the microbe. The term antibiotic resistance is a subset of AMR, as it applies only to bacteria becoming resistant to antibiotics.”
The AMR bacteria, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), will see “at least 700,000 people die each year due to drug-resistant diseases, including 230,000 people who die from multidrug-resistant tuberculosis,” as it stands currently.
As a result, however, the first annual Symposium on AMR and National AMR Awareness Campaign has been held where stakeholders from within the health sector from across the world were brought on board to find an action plan to combat the relevant bacteria.
Dr. Gloria Nimo, the Chief Executive Officer of the Amazing Grace Children’s Foundation, said the campaign is geared towards getting the community involved in “our education programs and raising awareness because we are all at risk of AMR.
On why AMR is not attracting the kind of attention the Coronavirus has, she said “I hear people do not want to be talking about those things. Most of the time, we give this responsibility to the government and other organizations to champion the cause.”
“But it is not the issue of the government,it is doing as much as it can, it is up to the community leaders and non-profit organizations that are doing missions in Ghana to come together instead of adding to the burden. We need to come out and have a creative way of talking and creating awareness and making sure that we are not adding to the burden of AMR, which kills more people than the coronavirus,” she explained.
Over 200 participants from Ghana and US,includingnurses, physicians, corporate heads, health professional groups, veterinarians, microbiologists, infectious disease specialists, pharmacists, medical and nursing students, public health students and professionals, the media and members of the general public attended the conference.
The well-attended conference, which was chaired by Mr. Benjamin Kwame Botwe, president, Pharmaceutical Society of Ghana,also witnessed solidarity messages from Prof KwamenaSagoe, Immediate Past Head of Department, Department of Medical Microbiology, University of Ghana/Chairman of the AMR Campaign Steering Committee; andDr. Mandell William, Infectious Disease Specialist, Internist, Primary Care Doctor, New York/ Clinical Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine New York State University.
There were also representatives from Medical and Dental Council, Paediatric Society of Ghana, Representative from WHO, FAO and the Ministry of Health, who all took turns to address the gathering.