World Antimicrobial Awareness Week (November 18-24) is hosted annually by the World Health Organization (WHO). The 2021 theme, Spread Awareness, Stop Resistance, calls on health stakeholders, policymakers, health care providers, and the general public to raise global awareness of antibiotic or antimicrobial resistance (AMR).

AMR is one of the top ten global public health threats facing humanity and it threatens the very core of modern medicine. The overuse and misuse of antimicrobials increases AMR. Here at our Hospital, the Antimicrobial Stewardship Program and Microbiology Laboratory work collaboratively on the frontlines to promote appropriate antimicrobial use and fight AMR. Some of the local initiatives include Procalcitonin (PCT) Testing and Guidelines, Maldi-Tof and respiratory PCR testing, Microbiology cascade reporting, antibiogram and the Firstline antimicrobial assistant app (which all Hospital staff can download for free on the App Store and Google Play: www.firstline.org).

One of those initiatives is antibiogram. An antibiogram is a summary of the cumulative susceptibility of bacterial isolates to formulary antibiotics during a specified period. It represents the proportion of each bacterium that is susceptible to a given formulary antibiotic.

Antibiograms are frequently used to highlight local (e.g., institutional) susceptibility data. They are usually published annually. They can also reveal the frequency of isolation of certain organisms.

Antibiograms typically represent isolates from an entire institution, but more specific antibiograms may be created for areas within an institution, or for infections with different resistance patterns if enough isolates are available (e.g., specific to intensive care units [ICUs] or oncology wards, urinary isolates, respiratory isolates from patients with cystic fibrosis).

Test your antimicrobial and stewardship knowledge with our local Firstline in-app World Antimicrobial Awareness Week Trivia Challenge (you could win a free Robins gift card!)

Also try the fun “Which antibiotic are you?” personality quiz by visiting https://quiz.tryinteract.com/#/59e68e3a8ecd1200126656e8

To learn more about how you can be a Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Awareness champion, visit https://bit.ly/WAAW-2021-WHO or contact Charlene Wilson, Antimicrobial Stewardship Pharmacist at wilsonch@tbh.net.