GARP Nepal celebrated World Antibiotic Awareness Week 2017 for the third year in a row during November 13-19, in collaboration with the academic partners: Institute of Medicine, Patan Academy of Health Sciences, Kathmandu University School of Medical Sciences, B. P. Koirala Institute of Health Sciences, Agriculture and Forestry University and pharmacy Colleges.  An array of activities including walkathon, essay, poster and quiz competitions, school health programs and community awareness programs were organized by the institutes to make people aware about antibiotics and antibiotic resistance. On last day of Awareness Week, GARP Nepal, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Livestock Development, FAO, WHO, OIE and the Fleming Fund jointly organized a Workshop on ‘One Health and Antimicrobial Resistance: Challenge and Way Forward’. The purpose of the workshop was to bring together all the stakeholders from human, veterinary and environmental health to tackle current situation of antimicrobial resistance from a ‘One Health’ perspective and discuss the challenges and way forward.

The animated video ‘Superbug Story: Diary of a Staph’ produced by GARP-Nepal, which explains how bacteria develop resistance to antibiotic and eventually turn into superbugs, was launched nationally and internationally during the Awareness Week.

Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3o5wT3KmhFo&t=7s

The 6 episode TV program ‘Bahas Ma Antibiotic’, produced by GARP Nepal in collaboration with NHEICC was telecasted on Nepal television (NTV), wherein experts from all related fields of health can be seen interacting on the rational use of antibiotics in human and animal health. In addition, an audio/visual documentary built around the issue of Antimicrobial Resistance in Nepal has been developed and is likely to be telecasted shortly.

Continuous efforts have been put into introducing the Antimicrobial Stewardship Program at Chitwan Medical College (CMC) in collaboration with DDA, as an effective systematic approach to optimizing the use of antimicrobials. An orientation program was held this past April at CMC for this purpose and was attended by the GARP Nepal team and representatives of DDA and CMC.

GARP Nepal also collaborated with Department of Drug Administration to come up with a manual to train practitioners of community pharmacies and drug retailers on the prudent sale and use of antimicrobials to limit the spread of resistance. A TOT program was run on April 2018 to train the trainers (personnel from DDA, NVL, NHEICC and NHTC) who would then provide successive trainings to the target groups with the help of the developed manual.

 Likewise, a committee was formed with officials of veterinary science, for developing a training manual for veterinarians and veterinary paraprofessionals on AMR. The training manual will be used for training practitioners of medicine in animal health, in a similar module as the one for community pharmacists.