AMR a growing threat

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a growing threat to public all over the world, with the highest all-age death rate in the sub-Saharan region.This according to chief veterinary officer at the agriculture ministry, Dr Albertina Shilongo, who was speaking at the One Health: National Antimicrobial Resistance Stakeholder Workshop.She said AMR is the ability of microorganisms to persist or grow in the presence of drugs designed to inhibit or kill them, which is compromising the ability to treat infectious diseases as well as undermining many other advances in health and medicine.“AMR has become of high importance as a growing number of pathogens develop resistance to even so-called last resort antibiotics, resulting in the inability to treat previously treatable bacterial diseases.”She said it should be recognised that the key to tackling AMR lies with prevention and control of infection in humans and animals, as well as in the environment.“Therefore, all international health organisations have joined forces to tackle the spread of resistant pathogens.”Shilongo said as a consequence, in 2015, the Global Action Plan on AMR was released, followed by the development of national action plans from around the globe. Namibia launched its plan in 2017.Covid undoes efforts“The Namibian national action plan focuses on essential pillars like antimicrobial use, education and training and surveillance to implement activities to help the country estimate the actual burden of AMR and how to reduce it.”Shilongo said since the launch of the action plan on AMR, a long time has passed and the emergence of another pandemic, Covid-19, undid many of their initial efforts.“Nevertheless, in March 2020, a first workshop took place at the Central Veterinary Laboratory to evaluate the actual implementation status of the Namibian national action plan activities. Based on these findings, we developed a list with a number of specific workshop resolutions.”Shilongo said based on the prior work undertaken, this stakeholder meeting and workshop will focus on the progress that has been achieved since 2020 and will look at the current gaps at a national level.Moreover, participants will use the time to review the implementation status of the resolutions from 2020 and add their expertise in developing a revised AMR implementation roadmap for the Directorate of Veterinary Services as a whole.Shilongo said the workshop proposes opportunities to start collaborating and networking beyond sector-specific boundaries, which is essential to control AMR efficiently.

AMR a growing threat

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Namibian Sun 2025-10-31

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AMR a growing threat

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Namibian Sun 2025-10-31

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