On Thursday, Union Health Secretary Mr. Rajesh Bhushan emphasized the importance of coordinated measures to combat the rising threat of antibiotic resistance in India. During the inter-sectoral coordination committee meeting, he also discussed the execution of the National Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance (NAP-AMR).

He asked the partner ministries and departments to collaborate with a whole-of-government approach to pool expertise and domain knowledge to develop a complete action plan with key performance indicators that can be monitored regularly.

The Inter-sectoral Coordination Committee on AMR (ISCC-AMR) is a high-level committee chaired by the health secretary with active participation from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR); Department of Animal Husbandry, Dairying, and Fisheries; Department of Biotechnology; Ministry of Food Processing Industries; and many others. 

Mr. Lav Agarwal, Additional Secretary of the Health Ministry, stated that the Centre had identified anti-microbial resistance as a key priority in its National Health Policy, 2017. The National Action Plan for Containment of AMR (NAP-AMR) was released in April 2017.

According to the NAP-AMR, the third strategic objective is Infection prevention and control. The fourth strategic objective of the action plan is Anti-microbial stewardship.

The meeting also discussed ongoing initiatives, such as the establishment of an Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) unit at NCDC to draft a National IPC program and linkages with IPC under other vertical health programs, the need for developing a digital platform to collect and collate national and state level data on antimicrobial consumption and duly converging human, animal, environment, and food sectors.

 It should also focus on creating state-specific action plans on AMR and the involvement of research agencies to develop an integrated research agenda on AMR.

During the meeting, it was decided that the Health Ministry would create the National Action Plan on AMR 2.0, incorporating the learnings from the ongoing implementation of NAP-AMR. This plan will converge the various ongoing initiatives under different ministries, strengthening the concerted efforts toward controlling AMR.

(Source:https://www.theweek.in/wire-updates/national/2023/06/15/del66-health-antimicrobial-resistance.html )