Jordan committed to fight against antimicrobial resistance — Hawari

AMMAN — Minister of Health Feras Al Hawari on Sunday stressed the need for cooperation among all concerned authorities, whether public or private, to address the phenomenon of antimicrobial resistance to drugs and antibiotics facing Jordan and the world.

Hawari’s remarks came during his meeting with Assistant Director General of the World Health Organisation (WHO) for Antimicrobial Resistance in Geneva Hanan Balkhi and an accompanying delegation, during a final meeting on her visit to the Kingdom, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

The aim of the meeting was to discuss the problem of antimicrobial resistance. 

During the meeting, which was attended by the WHO representative in Jordan Jamila Rabi, and a number of officials, Hawari said that the Jordanian government is about to update the national plan to address antimicrobial resistance in coordination with concerned sectors.

He pointed out that Jordan is committed to confront the phenomenon in cooperation with the ministries of agriculture and environment, water and irrigation, the National Centre for Epidemiology and Communicable Diseases, the Food and Drug Association, the Royal Medical Services and other official and civil institutions that support the efforts of the Ministry of Health in addressing this issue.

He pointed to the need to activate legislation and policies regulating the use of antibiotics in the field of human, animal and environmental health, especially in light of the lack of antibiotic options capable of dealing with microbes.

The minister said that despite Jordan’s achievements in addressing antimicrobial resistance, there is still a lot of work required to confront this phenomenon by raising awareness and identifying the extent of its seriousness and the role of concerned parties.

He added that facing the phenomenon requires the application of rational management of antimicrobials through the development of procedures that ensure a balance between the availability of antimicrobials and the control of their use and effectiveness for human, animal and food health.

He valued the role played by the WHO in supporting Jordanian efforts to address the problem, building the skills of workers and establishing a comprehensive national system for monitoring antimicrobial resistance since 2019.

Balkhi referred to her meeting and the accompanying delegation with the ministers of Agriculture and Environment, the Secretary General of the Ministry of Water and Irrigation, the Health Committee of the Lower House, President of the National Centre for Combating Epidemics and Communicable Diseases, and the Director General of the Royal Medical Services with the aim of uniting efforts to address the problem.

She also mentioned the WHO delegation’s meeting with other UN organisations represented in Jordan alongside civil society organisations and unions. 

She underlined that the WHO, at its three levels (main, regional and country offices), is ready to provide technical support to accelerate the implementation of national action plans and strengthen cooperation between parties.

She said that antimicrobial resistance poses a global threat to health and development, and therefore the WHO has placed it among the 10 major global threats to public health facing humanity, which requires urgent multi-sectoral action to achieve sustainable development goals.

She stressed that “nobody and no country or organisation will be able to confront it alone”, adding that everyone must cooperate nationally, regionally and globally to develop common solutions and follow up on their implementation.

She pointed out that recent studies, which collected data from 204 countries in 2019 that monitored the registration of about 5 million deaths associated with infection with these resistant microbes, of which about 1.3 million deaths were the direct cause of death.

The number of deaths exceeded the deaths recorded from known communicable diseases such as AIDS and malaria, which places antimicrobial resistance among the top 10 causes of death in the world.

Rabi stressed that this phenomenon is not only a problem facing humans, but is also a source of great concern in the areas of animal health and agriculture, and this is what prompted the WHO, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation and the World Health Organisation for Animal Health and the United Nations Environment Programme to form an expanded cooperation under the name “One Health Approach” to jointly address this phenomenon.