Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/1149353
24 ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE & STEWARDSHIP 71% of Americans aware of antibiotic resistance, yet confusion remains: 4 report findings By Anne-Marie Kommers S eventy-one percent of the public says they have heard of and know the meaning of antibiotic resis- tance, according to a data note from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. The data come from the June 2019 KFF Health Tracking Poll, which includes a nationally representative telephone sample of 1,206 adults 18 and older. Computer-as- sisted landline and cell phone interviews were conducted in English and Spanish from May 30, 2019, to June 4, 2019. Four more stats from the data note: 1. Fiy-three percent of the public says antibiotic overuse is a "major problem." Sixty-three percent are aware antibiotics lead to more durable and dangerous bacterial infections. 2. Just 39 percent know there is no relation between antibiotic resistance and viral outbreaks, such as measles and influenza. But 55 percent say either viral infections can be cured by antibiotics or they don't know enough to say. 3. Fiy-nine percent say they are worried about antibiotic resistance personally af- fecting them, although the opioid epidemic ranks among people's top worries. 4. Forty-five percent say they have not taken antibiotics as prescribed by a physician, which is one of the leading causes of antibi- otic resistance. Yet 59 percent say pharma- ceutical companies are "very responsible" for antibiotic resistance, while 56 percent blame physicians or healthcare providers. n Drug-resistant staph found on most nursing students' cellphones By Anuja Vaidya C ontamination of medical students' cellphones with drug-resistant bacte- ria is not uncommon, according to re- search presented in June at ASM Microbe, the annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in San Francisco. Researchers from Brazil collected samples from 100 cellphones belonging to medical university students. They found Staphylococcus aureus in 40 percent of the total samples, of which 70 percent belonged to students in the nursing course. The staph isolates were 85 percent resistant to penicillin. The presence of Escherichia coli was not observed in any of the samples. "More research is needed to provide evi- dence that improved cellphone hygiene will lead to a reduction in infections associated with healthcare," study authors concluded. n WHO urges adoption of antibiotic resistance tool By Anuja Vaidya T he World Health Organization launched a global campaign to encourage adoption of a tool designed to combat the spread of antibiotic resistance. The campaign urges governments to adopt the AWaRe tool, which classifies antibiotics into three groups: access, watch and reserve. These classifications can help providers identify the antibiotics that should be available at all times in the healthcare system, those that should be used sparingly and those that should only be used as a last resort. The campaign also aims to increase the proportion of antibiotics consumed globally in the access group to at least 60 percent, and to reduce use of antibiotics with the highest resistance risk in the watch and reserve groups. "Antimicrobial resistance is one of the most urgent health risks of our time and threatens to undo a century of medical progress," said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO's director-general. "All countries must strike a balance between ensuring access to lifesaving antibiotics and slowing drug resistance by reserving the use of some antibiotics for the hardest-to-treat infections. I urge countries to adopt AWaRe, which is a valuable and practical tool for doing just that." Improving protocols around antibiotic use is a key way to combat antibiotic resistance, especially since the development of new antibi- otics has been slow, according to the WHO. n