Windhoek, 7 April 2011 -- The World Health Organization (WHO) commemorated World Health Day on 7th April under the theme “Combat Drug Resistance: “No action today, No cure tomorrow” and launched a six-point policy package that sets out the measures governments and their national partners need to combat drug resistance.

Drug resistance is becoming more severe and many infections are no longer easily cured, leading to prolonged and expensive treatment and greater risk of death, warns the WHO on World Health Day. The discovery and use of antimicrobial drugs to treat diseases such as leprosy, tuberculosis, gonorrhoea and syphilis changed the course of medical and human history. Now, those discoveries and the generations of drugs that followed them are at risk, as high levels of drug resistance threaten their effectiveness.
WHO calls for urgent and concerted action by governments, health professionals, industry and civil society and patients to slow down the spread of drug resistance, limit its impact today and preserve medical advances for future generations. WHO Representative Dr Magda Robalo, echoing the remarks of WHO Director-General, Dr Margaret Chan said, “The message on this World Health Day is loud and clear. The world is on the brink of losing these miracle cures. No action today means no cure tomorrow. At a time of multiple calamities in the world, we cannot allow the loss of essential medicines – essential cures for many millions of people – to become the next global crisis.”

WHO’s policy package sets out the measures governments and their national partners need to combat drug resistance. The six point policy elements are the following:

develop and implement a comprehensive, financed national plan
strengthen surveillance and laboratory capacity
ensure uninterrupted access to essential medicines of assured quality
regulate and promote rational use of medicines
enhance infection prevention and control
foster innovation and research and development for new tools.
Drug resistance is a natural biological phenomenon, through which microorganisms acquire resistance to the drugs meant to kill them. With each new generation, the microorganism carrying the resistant gene becomes ever more dominant until the drug is completely ineffective. Human behaviour is another factor causing anti-microbial resistance (AMR). This occurs due to over-prescribing of certain medicines, the use of fake and counterfeit medicines, poor prescribing habits and non-compliance to prescribed treatment. If not properly managed, resistant germs may spread and cause severe diseases. However, attempts have been made to overcome medicine resistance through the development of newer medicines and combining multiple medicines in the treatment of single germs.

In Namibia, medicine resistance to various diseases has been notified. For instance, in 2009, a total of 372 cases of Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis (DR-TB) were reported, which is more difficult to treat. Globally there were 440,000 new multi-Drug-Resistance (MDR) TB cases annually cases reported in 64 countries so far. The malaria parasite is acquiring resistance to even the latest generation of medicines, and resistant strains causing gonorrhoea and shigella are limiting treatment options. Serious infections acquired in hospitals can become fatal because they are so difficult to treat and drug-resistant strains of microorganism are spread from one geographical location to another in today's interconnected and globalized world. Resistance is also emerging to the antiretroviral medicines used to treat people living with HIV.

Everyone can make a contribution!

Although governments need to take the lead and develop national policies to combat drug resistance, health professionals, civil society and other groups can also make important contributions. For example, doctors and pharmacists can prescribe and dispense only the drugs that are required to treat a patient, rather than automatically giving either the newest or best-known medicines. Patients can stop demanding that doctors give them antibiotics when they may not be appropriate. Health professionals can help rapidly reduce the spread of infection in health care facilities.

Collaboration between human and animal health and agriculture professionals is also vital, as the use of antibiotics in food animal production contributes to increased drug resistance. Approximately half of current antibiotic production is used in agriculture, to promote growth and prevent disease as well as to treat sick animals. With such massive use, those drug resistant microbes generated in animals can be later transferred to humans.

Governments and partners need to work closely with industry to encourage greater investment in research and development of new diagnostics that can help improve decision making as well as drugs to replace those that are being lost to resistance. Today, less than five per cent of products in the research and development pipeline are antibiotic drugs. Innovative incentive schemes are needed to stimulate industry to research and develop new antimicrobial drugs for the future.

Issued by: World Health Organization (WHO)

For more details, contact:

WHO: Communications & Advocacy Officer: Michelle Thulkanam – email - thulkanamm [at] na.afro.who.int (thulkanamm[at]na[dot]afro[dot]who[dot]int) ,

Ph- +26461-255-191/+264-81-423-0556