AMR and One Health: working across disciplines and countries

Jorge Pinto Ferreira, FAO Food Safety Officer, gave an online presentation, on 3 November 2021, during the 2nd “AMR Course a One Health Challenge”, co-organized by Mérieux Foundation & Université de Paris, to explain how cross-sectoral collaboration can make a difference in reducing antimicrobial resistance (AMR).

The one-week course faculty are experts from a broad range of disciplines, while the more than 30 participants tuned in from different parts of the world, including several low and middle-income countries.

Pinto Ferreira focused on interventions at the food production level, what agri-food producers can do, from a One Heath perspective, to use antimicrobials responsibly. He also drew less obvious connections, like that of the climate crisis and AMR. “Many of the infection prevention and control/biosecurity measures that are used depend on the existence of ‘clean’ water – a common good that is increasingly scarce,” he said.

He highlighted projects that are being implemented by FAO, such as, “Engaging the food and agriculture sectors in sub-Saharan Africa and South and South-east Asia in the global efforts to combat antimicrobial resistance using a One Health approach” and the Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices (KAP) studies, conducted in countries like Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, or Zimbabwe. These field level activities not only mean increased local capacity building, but allow us all to have data, that can be translated into evidence-based policies. 

As part of its AMR Action Plan, FAO seeks to increase stakeholder awareness and engagement, and different possibilities for collaboration opportunities with this course participants were presented, namely for the implementation of the Objective 1 of the FAO AMR Action Plan 2021-2025. The goals are to:

• get a better understanding of the different stakeholder perspectives and motivations
  
  
• identify barriers to change and to pilot collaborative solutions for science-based approach to interventions
  
  
• transform awareness of AMR risks into action.

Read more about the course

Find out about FAO’s work on AMR