Inter-Sectoral Coordination Committee on Anti-Microbial Resistance discuss implementation status of National Action Plan

The Inter-Sectoral Coordination Committee on Anti-Microbial Resistance on Thursday discussed the implementation status of National Action Plan. The Anti-Microbial Resistance (AMR) has been identified as a key priority in its National Health Policy, 2017, and India’s National Action Plan for containment of AMR was released in April 2017. AMR is also one of the three key priorities of India G20 Health Working Group, reflecting its importance at the global level.

Highlighting the importance of coordinated multi-lateral actions to address the growing menace of AMR in the country, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said, “AMR cannot be tackled in a linear and singular manner. As the issues and action points are multi-agency across the government and non-government sectors, the action plan to address it requires the joint efforts of all stakeholders through a unified mission mode approach”.

The meeting delved on the action taken under the various strategic priorities as part of the NAP-AMR. The strategic objectives of the NAP-AMR include enhancing awareness and understanding among people through communication and IEC activities. It also entails increasing knowledge and evidence through enhanced surveillance of AMR in human, animal and the environment through the National AMR Surveillance Network (NARS-Net) and state surveillance networks. The third strategic objective is infection prevention and control.

Towards this, National Guidelines for Infection Prevention and Control in healthcare facilities were issued in January 2020. Anti-microbial stewardship constitutes the fourth strategic objective of NAP-AMR. The fifth objective is bringing innovative research and development in new medicines and technologies, while national, sub-national and international collaborations constitute the sixth and final strategic objective of NAP-AMR.

Mr Bhushan urged the partner Ministries to work in a convergent mode with whole of government approach to bring together the expertise and domain knowledge for a comprehensive action plan with key performance indicators that can be periodically monitored.

The meeting discussed the ongoing initiative including an Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) unit being established at NCDC to draft National IPC programme and linkages with IPC under other vertical health programmes, need for developing a digital platform to collect and collate national and state level data on antimicrobial consumption and duly converging human, animal, environment and food sector , focus on creation of state specific Action Plans on AMR, and involvement of research agencies to develop an integrated research agenda on AMR.