Copy

Innovate4AMR Global Competition

Newsletter: Volume 2, Issue 2

Welcome to the second edition of the Innovate4AMR 2019 newsletter! In these communications, you’ll be introduced to resources that will help you learn about antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and the inspiring stories behind some of last year’s winning teams. You’ll also see regular updates and reminders through this forum. If you have not already done so, please sign up to receive this newsletter and further updates here! To find out more about Innovate4AMR, visit innovate4amr.org. To view the first issue of the newsletter, you can click here

September 2019
16
67 days left to submit proposals!
SUBMIT
While addressing antimicrobial resistance (AMR) through stewardship programs requires systems change, hospitals play a vital role in antimicrobial stewardship. Featured as this week's video below is Dr. Philip Mathew's (ReAct Asia Pacific) overview on the role of hospitals in antimicrobial stewardship. Dr. Philip Mathew is one of Innovate4AMR's champions, and part of the organizing team. He is a public health consultant for ReAct Asia Pacific, where he assists the ReAct Asia Pacific team in organizing sensitization activities, especially for those non-human sectors which are using antibiotics. He has also been engaging multiple stakeholders in the state of Kerala, India, from ASPIC (Antibiotic Stewardship and Prevention of Infection in Communities) student clubs to farmers and aquaculture operations. in doing so, he is raising awareness about antimicrobial resistance and driving behavior change to promote better antibiotic use and infection prevention practices. In addition, Philip Mathew also functions as an Assistant Professor of Community Medicine at Pushpagiri Medical College, Thiruvalla, India. 

As you move forward planning your proposals, we hope that videos such as this one will be helpful in providing insight on the different intervention points for antimicrobial stewardship. In addition, we hope these materials will help expand your knowledge of AMR as a systems problem, reflected in proposals submitted by September 16. For more resources, view the Educational Resources tab in each newsletter, or visit innovate4amr.org
Dr. Philip Mathew, a public health consultant for ReAct Asia Pacific discusses the role of hospitals in antimicrobial stewardship
Stay in the loop and never miss an update!
 
Like the Innovate4AMR Facebook page for regular updates, and join the 2019 Innovate4AMR Facebook group to interact with potential collaborators and other students interested in Innovate4AMR! Follow the Innovate4AMR Twitter as well to stay in the loop, and share Innovate4AMR with your friends with both the video above and flyer attached at the bottom of this newsletter
Innovate4AMR champion highlights
 
In this section, we'll be highlighting past Innovate4AMR competitors, as well as current AMR champions around the world:
  • One of the past Innovate4AMR winning teams, Team MUMSA from Uganda focused on secondary school students, designing a cohort study involving awareness-raising interventions (examining health activities, literature, debate, and quizzes as modalities). This study followed secondary school students in Kampala for three years to assess changes in awareness and knowledge about antimicrobial resistance after exposure to these multimodal interventions. Recently, this team competed in the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics' (FIND's) "Voices of Diagnosis" competition, winning $10,000 as one of the winning teams. They currently plan on using this award to implement the project's first phase, with data collection finishing by November 2019.
  • Another one of the past Innovate4AMR winning teams, Team Pilipinas from the Philippines endeavored to decrease the prevalence of antibiotic resistance by raising awareness and making the proper use of antibiotics a norm in the Filipino community. Their approach focuses on implementation of the delayed antibiotic prescribing strategy in the management and treatment of respiratory tract infections. Currently, this team is adapting their project into a research proposal in collaboration with their University's Department of Preventative Medicine. Along these lines, this team recently had a meeting with the WHO country office in the Philippines, and plan to present their study's results to the National Department of Health. 
A word from Innovate4AMR champions around the world
Educational Resources
Provided below are a few introductory materials to the field of AMR. In follow-on newsletters, we’ll provide additional policy tools, examples of ongoing AMR projects, and links to short videos or resources that should help you pull together a proposal for submission.
  • The Innovate4AMR team has pulled together and updated this Prezi, which gives a brief overview of the many intervention points along the antimicrobial pipeline. This presentation also contains challenges at each point, background information, some current efforts, as well as opportunities for improvement. 
  • The World Health Organization has this open course on antimicrobial stewardship. With 14 modules, this course reviews foundational clinical knowledge necessary to use antimicrobials wisely (Modules A-E), as well as how clinicians can incorporate this knowledge into their daily work using common clinical scenarios (Modules F-N).
  • Featured in the World Health Organization Bulletin here ( Van Dijck et al.) is a systematic review on antibiotic stewardship interventions in hospitals in low- and middle-income countries.
  • Surgical site infections threaten the lives of millions each year, and contribute to the spread of antibiotic resistance, especially in low- and middle-income countries. Resistant infections are driven by a lack of antimicrobial stewardship within hospitals. Learn more about the WHO Global Guidelines on the Prevention of Surgical Site Infections, as well as the WHO Secretariat Report A70/13 on improving the prevention, diagnosis and clinical management of sepsis.
  • The Upsala Journal of Medical Sciences has a series of open access articles around antibiotic resistance and antibiotic stewardship, which can be found here. Of note is this article on looking at antibiotic resistance from a health systems perspective.
  • Part 5 of this commissioned paper for Lancet Infectious Diseases (So et al., 2016) provides insight into the balance between access and excess of antibiotics. Although some patients are prescribed unnecessary courses of antibiotics, others are not given appropriate treatment; in considering proposals for submission, this dilemma is worth considering.
LIKE ON FACEBOOK
FOLLOW ON TWITTER
VISIT THE WEBSITE
SIGN UP FOR THE ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE COALITION NEWSLETTER
Please reach out if you have any questions:
innovate4amr@gmail.com

Innovate4AMR is an online student competition. View the terms and eligibility to participate here. Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences.







This email was sent to <<Email Address>>
why did I get this?    unsubscribe from this list    update subscription preferences
The IDEA Initiative · 9E E 33rd St Apt 723B · Baltimore, MD 21218-3243 · USA

Email Marketing Powered by Mailchimp