By Muhammad Amaan
Nigeria has recorded significant gains in antimicrobial stewardship across 17 health facilities under the Commonwealth Partnerships for Antimicrobial Stewardship (CwPAMS).
Pharm. Estelle Mbadiwe, Founding Partner at Ducit Blue Solutions, the in-country coordinating organisation for CwPAMS, disclosed this in an interview with News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Abuja.
Mbadiwe said that the gains had led stakeholders to start calling for integration of the programme into the National Health systems.
She identified the 17 facilities to include University of Calabar Teaching Hospital, Calabar, which operates at Comprehensive Health Centre, Okoyong, University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH), Ituku Ozalla, and Babcock University Teaching Hospital.
Others are College of Medicine of the University of Lagos (CMUL), Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), College of Medicine of the University of Lagos (CMUL) which operates at Palm Avenue Primary Health Centre and UK Lead / Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and partners which provide support and expertise across all sites.
She said that the three-year programme delivered major improvements in governance, data quality, medicine use and community awareness, while supporting Nigeria’s National Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR).
“CwPAMS has delivered critical gains in antimicrobial stewardship over the past three years.
“What we are discussing now is how these gains can be absorbed into Nigeria’s national mechanisms,” she said.
Mbadiwe said that antimicrobial stewardship focuses on ensuring that medicines used to treat infections, such as antibiotics and antifungals, remain effective as bacteria and other pathogens evolve.
“Drugs that used to work are no longer working, and that threatens quality healthcare.
“This programme has helped Nigeria build systems, skills and strategies to combat resistance, while also creating platforms for bilateral learning with UK health institutions,” she said.
The pharmacists highlighted some of the achievements to include the development of facility-level guidelines for managing AMR, improved data quality and medicine quality review.
Others are strengthening of leadership and governance structures, and deeper community awareness.
She said that the programme had been integrated into Nigeria’s National Action Plan on AMR through close collaboration with the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC).
Mbadiwe noted that funding for AMR activities had increased in several states.
She harped on the need to sustain the hub-and-spoke mentorship model, community pharmacy engagement and facility-based data systems beyond the lifespan of the project.
“Ducit Blue Solutions will continue to visit participating health facilities to conduct monitoring and evaluation activities, to ensure that the gains recorded under the programme are sustained.
“We are sustaining what we have already built, community engagement, capacity building, data-driven decision-making and awareness creation. These should continue and be expanded,” she said.
Calling AMR, a “silent pandemic,” Mbadiwe urged Nigerians to take collective responsibility by understanding the drivers of resistance and promoting responsible
medicine use.
CwPAMS is jointly managed by the Commonwealth Pharmacists Association (CPA) and the Global Health Partnerships (GHP, formerly THET) with Ducit Blue Solutions and NCDC serving as the in-country grants managers in Nigeria.
The programme is funded by the UK Department of Health and Social Care through the Fleming Fund.
It is designed to combat antimicrobial resistance globally by strengthening health systems and antimicrobial stewardship.
Key focus areas of CwPAMS include improving antimicrobial stewardship and surveillance, building antimicrobial pharmacy expertise, and enhancing infection prevention and control.
The programme also focuses on improving the use of clinical microbiology and antimicrobial prescribing data to inform clinical decisions and strengthen the detection and reporting of substandard and falsified antimicrobial medicines.
