Indore: NCDC & MGM Medical College sign MoU on AMR containment

Indore (Madhya Pradesh): The National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Medical College have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to expand National Programme on Antimicrobial Resistance Containment beyond antimicrobial resistance surveillance to antimicrobial resistance containment activities.

The NCDC and MGM Medical College will perform various activities in a phased manner, including capacity-building of network labs for AMR surveillance, establishing and strengthening surveillance of antibiotic consumption and surveillance of healthcare-associated infections and establishing state AMR surveillance networks.

According to dean Dr Sanjay Dixit, “Increasing antimicrobial resistance is a serious threat to public health. The World Health Organization and ministry of health and family welfare are emphasising putting a check on antibiotics which is the need of the hour. The MoU has been signed to implement the NAP-AMR and an annual report will also be released over the issue.”

The NCDC will provide the funds for strengthening capacity to conduct AMR surveillance and containment activities, capacity-building, including training of manpower, onsite support visits for implementation of the programme activities, conducting External Quality Assessment System (EQAS) and AMR alert confirmation, to ensure collection of quality data by providing quarterly feedback to the sites and data compilation annually and generate a National AMR Surveillance report.

Meanwhile, MGM Medical College will carry out surveillance of antimicrobial usage in associated hospitals, share the analysed antimicrobial usage data with NCDC, conduct prescription audits and strengthen Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) practices, conduct regular meetings of the Hospital Infection Control Committee (HICC), initiate surveillance of health care-associated infections (HAIs), monitor early-warning signals for impending outbreaks of health care-associated infections and coordinate through HICC for appropriate response and others.