As part of its core duties, the National Micro-Reference Laboratory does a routine check on antibacterial resitance of various pathogens. In the first half of this year, the lab has reported that 9 pathogens are showing very high resistance to commonly used antibiotics.
The pathogens include Methicillin-resistant Staph aureus (MRSA), Neisseria gonorrhoeae, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Escherichia coli, Streptocaus pneumoniae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Acinetobacter salmonella, Typhi and Shigella.
The Public Health Institute of Malawi (PHIM) welcomes on board two members of staff from Norwegian Church Aid (NCA) on secondment.
Mwakamwereti Kanjo joins as the Communications Officer and is responsible for the visibility and awareness of PHIM and its programmes while Grace Funsani joins as the Surveillance Officer to strengthen and support surveillance and response at the institution.
The two have been hired by the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH) through Norwegian Church Aid (NCA).
NIPH has since 2008 supported PHIM in its establishment and is now offering technical support for the strengthening of the International Health Regulations IHR (2005) implementation.
Antimicrobial resistance was in February this year recognized as a public health risk that needs to be given priority. This was discussed and agreed upon during a key stakeholders meeting that took place at Bingu International Conference Centre (BICC) in Lilongwe.
The meeting attracted people from the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Agriculture, non-governmental organization including the World Health Organization (WHO) which is driving the campaign globally, the academia, pharmaceuticals and members of the public.
One of the key action points was the development of a National AMR Strategy in line with the Global Action Plan that would inform the activities and interventions for AMR.
The strategy is currently in place waiting on approval from the responsible authorities. As a sign of commitment, Malawi will this year join the world in commemorating Awareness week from 12 to 19 November.