Background

Introduction

In February 2016, the GRIP partnership met to review the global efforts to combat AMR and determine the potential benefits of collaboration. The aim of the meeting was to examine GRIP’s existing global and local partnerships, and define how to establish new partnerships to further extend the network. The group also explored additional measures to enhance the dialogue between patients and prescribers about the appropriate use of antibiotics in URTIs and sought to develop clearer ways in which to measure its success in 2016.

“Where have we come from? Who are we? Where are we going?” Professor Oxford

Chair Professor Oxford opened the meeting by highlighting the achievements of GRIP and encouraging the group to look at how it could make further impact.

Providing an overview on the diminishing usefulness of antibiotics, Professor Oxford presented a paper recently published in Nature that in part looked at antibacterial drug discovery in the resistance era. The golden era for antibiotics was the 1950-1970s. Since the 2000s, however, we have been in the resistance era, with the use of broad-spectrum antibiotics offering a low success rate. The paper suggested a need to focus on narrow-spectrum antibiotics and the introduction of innovative methods to create these in future years.

With the dearth of new antibiotics in development as well as the protracted time to bring any new antibiotic into clinical practice, interventions to combat AMR and changing behaviours of patients, prescribers and pharmacists to preserve the antibiotics we have remain critical, emphasised Professor Oxford. In order to effect behaviour change regarding people’s attitudes to antibiotic use in URTI management, a multipronged approach is needed.