Antimicrobial Resistance & Stewardship

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact global populations at a large scale. As of April 2023, there have been over 700 million confirmed cases of COVID-19, and nearly 7 million deaths reported to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Antibiotics have been used to save countless lives for decades. What happens when these drugs we depend on are no longer effective? Imagine a scenario where routine surgeries and minor infections can frequently become life-threatening, and the cost of treatment increases substantially.

The Global Point Prevalence Survey (Global-PPS) is a free, online tool, developed by the University of Antwerp in Belgium, to measure and monitor antimicrobial prescribing and resistance in hospitals worldwide. Since its creation and launched in 2015, more than 90 countries have taken part in the initiative, involving 1,300 hospitals and 500,000 patients.

Patients who are admitted to the hospital with large burn injuries are at especially high risk for developing hospital-associated infections (HAIs), and the longer a patient stays in the hospital, the more likely they are to acquire a resistant infection.

A failure of the antibiotics market is hampering vital innovation in this field. Researchers from the Toulouse School of Economics (TSE) propose a new mechanism for compensating innovation, taking the form of a voucher that would be transferable.