Statement from Dr. Marc Ouellette on World Antibiotic Awareness Week 2016

November 14, 2016 - Ottawa, Ontario - Canadian Institutes of Health Research

November 14-20 is World Antibiotic Awareness Week, a week designed to increase our understanding of antimicrobial resistance – a situation when microbes like bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites change so that drugs that were previously effective against them stop working.

Antimicrobial resistance, or AMR, is a growing threat in Canada: Every year, over 20,000 hospital patients in Canada develop infections related to antimicrobial resistance, resulting in over $250M in direct medical costs. And the problem is set to keep on growing, with the Review on Antimicrobial Resistance projecting that AMR could lead to 10M deaths annually worldwide by 2050 if nothing is done to counter this threat.

The risk is that, as antibiotics start to lose their effectiveness, procedures such as surgeries, organ transplantation, chemotherapy, treatments for HIV, malaria and tuberculosis, and even childbirth – become increasingly risky.

The good news is that the Government of Canada has made tackling AMR a high priority, pursuing a "one health" approach that sees key government departments and agencies working with other levels of government and different sectors, including public health, animal health, agriculture, environment, and industry, to combat the threat posed by AMR in a coordinated fashion.

On the world stage, Canada has committed to tackling AMR through the G7, G20 and UN General Assembly, contributing to a common fund to support research and development and play a leadership role in developing new antimicrobials, alternative medicines, vaccines and diagnostics.

CIHR is an important piece of the puzzle: Between 2010 and 2015, CIHR invested over $96M in AMR research. We are supporting Canadian researchers, and working with international counterparts to coordinate research efforts and to achieve long-term reduction in AMR levels. As a member of the Joint Programming Initiative on Antimicrobial Resistance – a collaboration of 22 member states – CIHR has invested $6.7M in research on resistant bacterial infections.

I am also proud of the work CIHR is doing in collaboration with AMR stakeholders, including industry. In support of our new initiative on point-of-care diagnostics, this summer we organized a workshop that brought together health researchers, representatives of the pharmaceutical and health care industries, and government, to encourage the formation of partnerships between researchers and industry, with the ultimate goal of developing new tests to rapidly and accurately diagnose antimicrobial resistance, and facilitating their uptake to market so that they're available for Canadians. And later this week we will host a forum, sponsored by Merck Canada Inc., focused on coming up with new ways to encourage doctors, pharmacists, and patients to use antimicrobials more responsibly – so that these important drugs maintain their effectiveness.

This World Antibiotic Awareness Week, I encourage you to learn more about this threat to our health and what you can do to help stop its spread.

Marc Ouellette, PhD
Scientific Director
CIHR Institute of Infection and Immunity

International collaboration key to fighting AMR

CIHR is pleased to announce funding of $145,000 to two Canadian researchers who will help lead international working groups made up of leading experts to fight AMR.

One team, to be led by Dr. John Marshall at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto, will study what can be done to lower the risk of transmission of AMR in intensive care units.

The other team will be co-led by the University of Alberta's Dr. Nicholas Ashbolt and will aim to increase our understanding of how antibiotic resistant bacteria circulating in water, soil and air come to have an effect on human health.

Associated Links

• Quiz: How much do you know about antibiotic resistance?
• Prevention of antibiotic resistance