The mission visited 4 selected sites in Amman, Karak and Irbid and met with the animal health sector and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations to review available systems and information for early implementation of the GLASS in Jordan.
At the end of the mission a consultative workshop was held with concerned parties to discuss the findings and the way forward for Jordan. During the consultation, participants stressed the need to establish a national coordination centre within the coming months by the Ministry of Health. They also committed to establishing a network of participating sites coordinated by the antimicrobial resistance national focal point and the central public health laboratories to ensure the compliance of those sites with quality systems and uniformity in testing and quality. The system is also to be linked with the national electronic surveillance systems.
WHO Representative to Jordan Dr Maria Cristina Profili asserted the need for a multisectoral national response to the AMR threat that starts with a well-informed national action plan on AMR aligned with the 5 strategic objectives of the global plan. This includes establishing effective education and awareness-raising programmes, establishing robust surveillance that goes beyond the walls of hospitals, developing operational plans for infection control, promoting responsible use of antibiotics in humans and animals, as well as innovations in the area of new diagnostic tools and medicines.
“Reports have shown that antimicrobial resistant pathogens are affecting all aspects of health and no one is safe from them, whether in the hospital or the community. Hospital-acquired infections, MDR and XDR TB, drug resistant malaria, HIV and many other superbugs that are immediate threats to global health,” Dr Profili emphasized. “it is very important to act now to start controlling the spread antimicrobial resistance, in particular by starting to implement policies in order to use antibiotics very carefully and only when needed,” said Dr Rana Hajjeh, Director, Communicable Diseases Prevention and Control, WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean in Cairo. “By improving surveillance, we can learn more about the burden of AMR, and we can closely monitor the impact of various interventions”.
Countries can benefit from participation in GLASS through enhanced capacity-building, access to training and implementation tools, and support in collecting and using the AMR data at local and national levels. Country participation in GLASS must be with the agreement of the national government and requires enrolment of the country.
Related link
Global Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance System (GLASS)
