Last month, a group of over 70 infectious disease and public health experts signed an open letter urging South Africa’s Department of Health and Minister Aaron Motsoaledi to reintroduce a national action plan (NAP) on antimicrobial resistance, warning that rising antibiotic resistance threatens progress towards universal health coverage under the National Health Insurance.
GroundUp, a South African non-profit news website, published a story about this situation. You can read it here. CAMO-Net South Africa co-lead Professor Marc Mendelson was quoted in the story, providing his perspective on South Africa’s NAP. In this piece, Professor Mendelson elaborates on his position and further contextualises the need take action on AMR in the country.
South Africa’s National Action Plan for antimicrobial resistance (AMR) expired last year and to date, there is no current strategic framework. Furthermore, the scientific advisory body to government (the Ministerial Advisory Committee on AMR) completed its 2nd cycle in November 2023 and has not been reconvened. Therefore, there is currently no scientific advisory forum to government on what is a major public health crisis.
In an open letter to the Minister of Health, infection and public health experts, clinicians, pharmacists, infection control practitioners, AMR researchers and policy experts call on the government to address these deficiencies urgently.
Antimicrobial resistance (bacterial infections that are resistant to antibiotics) is the third leading underlying cause of death worldwide, is associated with almost 5 million deaths annually, and will cause 39 million deaths in the next 25 years.
More even than that, it threatens modern medicine and procedures that you take for granted – prevention and treatment of infections – increasing the risk of surgery, and reducing chances that cancer patients (who get more bacterial infections) will survive.
It threatens food security (you can’t have food production without antibiotics), and socioeconomic security – estimates are that AMR is expected to result in a drop in Gross Domestic Product of at least $3.4 trillion each year by 2030, pushing 24 million more people into extreme poverty.
South Africa has a tremendous amount of work to do to mitigate this worsening pandemic. It cannot do it with its hands tied behind its back.
We need a funded national action plan that will target interventions that actually make an impact on the increasing tide of resistant bacterial infections.
It’s time to get back on track.
