From: <b class="gmail_sendername">shila kaur</b> <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:kaur_shila@yahoo.com">kaur_shila@yahoo.com</a>></span><br><div class="gmail_quote">Health Action International Asia Pacific (HAIAP)<br>
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<br>Third World Network<br><div><b>
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<b><br>UK to call for G8 action against superbugs</b></div>
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The prevailing sentiment in the global health community is that the world is on the brink of a public health catastrophe in view of soaring rates of potentially lethal infections. Public health programmes are under increasing threat due to unbridled antimicrobial resistance. While health care providers grapple with increasing ineffectiveness of ‘drugs-of-last-resort’ and the pipeline for antimicrobial innovation remains dry, governments are beginning to seek coordinated international action to tackle antimicrobial resistance. This mailing informs on the latest move by Britain in efforts to arrest the problem.</div>
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With best wishes<br>
TWN </div>
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<b>UK to call for G8 action against superbugs</b></div>
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<i>By Shila Kaur, Penang, 13 June 2013</i></div>
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In a move seen as the strongest to date by any country in the world to arrest the alarming rates of lethal infections, Britain will urge the G8 to take action against antimicrobial resistance through co-ordinated international action. Britain’s science Minister, David Willets has come out strongly with a proposal for far-reaching measures aimed at clamping down on the overuse of antibiotics by hospital doctors and GPs as well as in animal husbandry and fisheries in Britain.</div>
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According to a 11 June 2013 news report in The Guardian, Willet’s proposal includes getting consensus on ways to increase new drug innovation, fast track approval and delivery to patients as well as strong cross-border surveillance for emerging strains. Willets made this announcement ahead of a meeting today (Wednesday 12 June 2013) of science ministers at the Royal Society in London. (see appended ‘UK raises alarm on deadly rise of superbugs’ The Guardian, Tuesday 11 June 2013)</div>
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The meeting will be briefed by England’s chief medical officer, Dame Sally Davies, who has asked for antibiotic resistance to be added to the UK government’s national risk register, a move that makes it easy to flag the issue internationally. She has already rallied international experts and chief medical officers in other countries to push the EU and World Health Organization to beef up their action plans. This was evidenced by a jointly organized meeting on Antibiotic Resistance by the delegations of Sweden and Britain, held on 21 May 2013 on the sidelines of the recently convened 66th World Health Assembly in Geneva. (see TWN Info Service on Health Issues, May13/09,<br>
30 May 2013)</div>
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WHO has warned that underlying factors that accelerate the emergence and spread of AMR include: lack of a comprehensive and coordinated response; weak or absent antimicrobial resistance surveillance and monitoring systems; inadequate systems to ensure quality and uninterrupted supply of medicines; inappropriate use of antimicrobial medicines, including in animal husbandry; poor infection prevention and control practices; and insufficient diagnostic, prevention and therapeutic tools.</div>
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Britain’s proposals which are seen as far-reaching include stimulating the development of new drugs through public-private partnerships, restricting the use of antibiotics in farm animals and medical practice, cross-border surveillance and national antibiotics education programmes. The government is expected to make public its antimicrobial resistance strategy next month which will show case plans to slow down the emergence and spread of antimicrobial resistant strains, maintain the effectiveness of existing drugs and bolster support for researchers.</div>
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Britain’s announcement may prove to be the rallying call for other countries as it comes in the wake of an earlier report published by the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) on 17 April 2013 which showed that since 1998, only four antibiotics have been produced by the world’s 11 biggest drug companies – and today, only four Big Pharma companies are still working on antibiotics at all.</div>
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According to that report, in 2010 IDSA launched a ‘10 x 20’ campaign calling for 10 new antibiotics by the end of the decade. However only two new antibiotics were approved in the US since 2009. The report cited high cost/benefit ratios and FDA rules as factors hindering interest in drug innovation. While a handful of smaller pharma companies have continued to invest in antimicrobial drug innovation their numbers are small and insufficient. Without government partnership and support for approval measures and finances, the brain drain from antibiotic research will continue.</div>
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A study by MPHonline.org reported that superbugs are responsible for US$20 billion a year in excess US healthcare costs, plus US$35 billion in lost wages and other societal costs from the almost eight million days that infected patients spend in the hospital. Other bacterial strains cause an estimated 3.6 million cases of food poisoning each year, according to the US Centres on Disease Control and Prevention. The symptoms can range from diarrhoea to kidney failure, paralysis and even death. Salmonella-caused illnesses alone kill 400 people a year and cause 23,000 hospitalizations in the US.</div>
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According to doctors in Britain, some 80% of gonorrhoea is now resistant to the frontline antibiotic tetracycline. There is serious concern about the rise of resistance to powerful antibiotics of last resort – carbapenems. Apart from this, there is threat of increasing use of drugs in animal husbandry. Increasing evidence also points towards the evolution of strains of dangerous bacteria, including MRSA, E coli and salmonella that are resistant to some of the strongest antibiotics. While farms in the UK and other EU countries are not supposed to use antibiotics, there is a lack of monitoring information on how these drugs are actually used in practice.</div>
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In the US antibiotics are routinely used in animal feed - where up to 80% of antibiotics are used for animals – and in Latin America and other regions because they help animals gain weight faster.</div>
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In view of the above Britain’s proposal for increased public-private partnership to stimulate drug innovation will be closely watched by the global health community. Detractors of the fast track regulatory approval process, advocated by IDSA, to make antibiotic development more profitable for Big Pharma, favour smaller pharma companies’ focus exclusively on superbugs and other resistant bacteria. Whether it is partnering with Big or small Pharma, Britain will be test case of sorts with regards to antibiotics innovation.</div>
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It has also been intimated that Britain will eventually push for a UN treaty that would ban antibiotics in food production such as fish and fruit farming, streamline the regulatory process for licensing new drugs and commit nations to educational drives that instil more prudent usage of the drugs.</div>
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What is clear is that in blazing the trail, Britain is impressing on the global health community, the urgency of the current state of AMR. </div>
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