THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: When Kerala launched the strategic action plan for containing antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in October last year, it became the first state in the country to do so. However, with almost a year on, the Health Department is worried that some of the stakeholders are lagging in executing the action plan in letter and spirit.
According to the department, compliance with the Kerala AMR Strategic Action Plan (KARSAP) by the stakeholders is the need of the hour. “Antimicrobial resistance has emerged as the new public health challenge. In the latest, we came across a colistin resistance gene from Ernakulam General Hospital. The frightening aspect is that colistin is considered to be one of the last-resort antibiotics used against multidrug-resistant bacteria,” said an officer of the Health Department.
Dr Sarada Devi KL, head of the Microbiology Department at GMC, Thiruvananthapuram, said, “KARSAP is pivotal in AMR surveillance, prevention and research. Thus, its implementation status needs to be assessed. For the same, we will ask the stakeholders to come out with a status report on the projects they had promised to undertake under KARSAP.”
As per sources, the implementation of KARSAP is not that satisfactory as activities including reducing the incidence of infection through effective prevention and control in environment and optimising the use of antibiotics were found to be a nonstarter