Third Global High-Level Ministerial Conference on Antimicrobial Resistance

About:

• Theme: 'The AMR Pandemic: From Policy to One Health Action'.
• It will enhance international cooperation to tackle AMR and build on the success of the two previous high-level ministerial conferences held in the Netherlands in 2014 and 2019.
• The conference is also expected to pave the way for nations to come out with bold and specific political commitments in the 2024 UN General Assembly High-Level Meeting on AMR.

Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR):

• Antimicrobials – including antibiotics, antivirals, antifungals and antiparasitic – are medicines used to prevent and treat infections in humans, animals and plants.
• Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites change over time and no longer respond to medicines making infections harder to treat and increasing the risk of disease spread, severe illness and death.
• As a result of drug resistance, antibiotics and other antimicrobial medicines become ineffective and infections become increasingly difficult or impossible to treat.

Major initiatives taken by India to combat AMR:

• National Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance (NAP-AMR):
  • Government of India launched National Action Plan in 2017, two years after the World Health Organisation (WHO) launched its Global Action Plan on AMR.
  • National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), New Delhi is the focal point for implementationand coordination of the NAP-AMR.
• Red Line Campaign:
  • Under the Red Line Campaign, the Government of India urges people not to use medicines marked with a red vertical line, without a doctor’s prescription.
  • This campaign is aimed at discouraging unnecessary prescription and over-the-counter sale of antibiotics causing drug resistance for several critical diseases including TB, malaria, dengue, etc.