Antibiotic resistance: Theme for next Uppsala Health Summit

The theme for the next Uppsala Health Summit, to be held in Uppsala on 2-3 June 2015, is antibiotic resistance -- one of the biggest global health challenges of our day. The basis of this Summit will be the WHO draft Global Action Plan against antimicrobial (including antibiotic) resistance. This plan, currently being discussed at a high-level meeting in Stockholm, is set to be launched at the World Health Assembly in May.

This week, representatives of some 30 governments and the WHO are meeting in Stockholm, hosted by the Public Health Agency of Sweden. This high-level meeting, part of the development of the Global Action Plan (GAP) on antimicrobial resistance to be presented by WHO in 2015, is focusing on the surveillance and information systems required to monitor the consequences and effects of various measures. The aims are to boost member countries' commitment, induce them to support standardised surveillance systems and standards, and get their solid backing for the GAP.

At the World Health Assembly in May 2015, the GAP on antimicrobial resistance will be on the agenda. WHO's Antimicrobial Resistance: Global Report on Surveillance (2014) emphasises that common infections, such as pneumonia and urinary tract infections, will once again become fatal if nothing is done to combat the rapid rise in antibiotic resistance and remedy the lack of new antibiotics.

Thomas Tängdén, an assistant professor and researcher in infectious diseases at Uppsala University who chairs the programme committee for the Uppsala Health Summit, says that the Summit in June will carry on where the World Health Assembly leaves off in May.

'The Action Plan will identify what has to be done, and we will discuss how to put it into practice, what obstacles have to be surmounted, and who is responsible.'

The Health Summit in Uppsala, Sweden, will bring together invited experts, decision-makers and representatives of international health organisations from all over the world. Much of the time will be set aside for small-group discussions on selected key issues. The subjects to be discussed will include new economic models for developing and distributing new antibiotics, their rational use, their availability in low- and medium-income countries, diagnostics, the use of antibiotics for animals, and resistance in the environment.

'In these areas,' explains Anders Malmberg, Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Uppsala University and chair of the Uppsala Health Summit steering group, 'we have the internationally leading competence necessary to ask the relevant questions.

'The aim is to make solid progress on the issue in discussions with stakeholders who have the remits and capacity to act.'