Category: News and press

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) adopted a resolution on antimicrobial resistance and the use of antibiotics in animals in June 2015. The resolution calls upon FAO to ensure that the organisation is actively engaged and coordinated in promoting the work on combating AMR and to strengthen the tripartite collaboration between FAO, WHO and OIE to combat AMR in the spirit of a One Health Approach. Strongly supporting the ongoing work of FAO to assess the evidence of antimicrobial resistance in food and agriculture systems, identify knowledge gaps and provide recommendations for effectively combating AMR, the Resolution further requests FAO to actively support and provide capacity building as appropriate in those areas pertinent to combating AMR and to support implementation of the Global Action Plan on AMR.

JPIAMR warmly welcomes this Resolution and FAO’s commitment to the One Health approach.

More information on the FAO’s resolution and its work on antimicrobial resistance can be found here.

Online mapping tool and new CDDEP report show rise in drug-resistant infections and antibiotic use; CDDEP calls for prioritization of drug conservation over new R&D efforts

MWASHINGTON, D.C. and NEW DELHI (17 September 2015) — Researchers at the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy (CDDEP) released new data today documenting alarming rates of bacteria resistant to last-resort antibiotics that can lead to life-threatening infections across the world. Though wealthy countries still use far more antibiotics per capita, high rates in the low- and middle-income countries where surveillance data is now available—such as India, Kenya, and Vietnam—sound a warning to the world. For example, in India, 57 percent of the infections caused by Klebsiella pneumoniae, a dangerous superbug found in hospitals, were found to be resistant to one type of last-resort drug in 2014, up from 29 percent in 2008. For comparison, these drugs, known as carbapenems, are still effective against Klebsiella infections in 90 percent of cases in the United States and over 95 percent of cases in most of Europe.

The findings were released via CDDEP’s ResistanceMap, an interactive online tool that allows users to track the latest global trends in drug resistance in 39 countries, and antibiotic use in 69 countries. It includes infections caused by 12 common and potentially deadly bacteria, including Escherichia coli (E. coli), Salmonella, and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). This is the first time data from a significant number of developing countries have been brought together publicly.

CDDEP also issued the first report to look comprehensively at the current state of global antibiotic use and drug resistance in humans, livestock and the environment. The report, The State of the World’s Antibiotics, 2015, lays out six strategies that belong in every national plan to halt the spread of resistance. Report authors say antibiotic stewardship is the key component of that action, and they challenge the frequently-cited notion that the problem with antibiotic resistance is a lack of new drugs in the antibiotic pipeline.

Link to full text

Link to full report

We are pleased to announce that on 17 November 2015 in Paris, JPIAMR and the French Ministry of Health is organising an Intergovernmental Workshop in the area of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). At the workshop, invited representatives from ministries, agencies, and funding bodies will come together to:

• understand the remit of ministries and agencies toward AMR,
• discuss ways to add value to new and existing programmes of work through cooperation and coordination within and between countries and,
• discuss the challenges associated with transnational funding.

In most countries, multiple ministries and agencies are involved in the area of AMR with different funding mechanisms and scientific remits. In order to bring these ministries and agencies together to discuss the problem of AMR, the French ministry of health and JPIAMR are jointly organising this innovative workshop to discuss, support, and strengthen alignment within and between countries.

Science Europe has published a position statement on the role and future of joint programming where they recommend that greater focus on impact should be the future of joint programming. JPIAMR welcome this approach where the emphasis is on impact, developing critical mass and contributing to advancing specific fields of knowledge by aligning resources and research agendas rather than only aligning research funding through for example joint funding and joint calls.

The organisation outlines that the rationale driving policy decisions related to JPIs should be based on real scientific impacts such as:

• Linking up of the whole research and innovation eco-system around a topic.
• Devising Strategic Research Agendas to enable the identification of areas where an actual added value for alignment exists.
• Act as focal points – both nationally and internationally – for policy, initiatives or stakeholders that otherwise may not have a ‘counterpart’ on the topic to allow topical communities to speak with one voice, and more generally raise the profile of their area.
• Foster alignment of data definition, collection, handling and storage, facilitating their sharing to push the knowledge frontier.
• Facilitate the sharing of research facilities and resources, by making formal arrangements or by alerting researchers to relevant existing resources in other countries.
• Influence the European policy agenda, by organising and structuring ERANETs or by having an impact on the Horizon 2020 research agenda.
• Develop global networks of top European teams.

JPIAMR is committed to achieving greater impact through international coordination and exchange around AMR.

Download the report here

This ERAnet Cofund call, JPI-EC-AMR, with over 20 participating countries will open in January 2016 and will support multidisciplinary research networks to conduct collaborative and complementary studies that will unravel the complex dynamics of selection and transmission of antimicrobial resistance to understand the mechanisms that contribute to the spread of resistance.

JPIAMR is dedicated to ‘One Health’ where multiple disciplines work together to identify and characterise the determinants that contribute to the spread of resistance in and between different reservoirs; including animals, the environment, and people. Investigating the complex biology and epidemiology of selection and transmission of resistance is crucial in order to design preventive measures to address this public health threat.

To unravel the dynamics of transmission and selection of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) at genetic, bacterial, animal, human, societal, and environmental levels, in order to design and evaluate preventive and intervening measures for controlling resistance.

To ensure that young researchers in the field of infectious disease reach their full potential, it is essential that the younger generation of microbiologists, clinicians and biotechnologists have access to the best possible training and career development opportunities at all stages of their professional life. Therefor, the FP7 project Infect-ERA plans a young scientists training and networking workshop that will take place in Budapest on 14 October 2015.

This workshop will include talks from first class speakers and hands on training in scientific writing. It will present career opportunities with special focus on intellectual property and commercialization aspects. This workshop is free, open to all scientists (no age restriction), but requires registration.

If you’re interested, read more on Infect-ERA’s website.

At the end of 2015, JPIAMR will launch a rapid-action call for leading scientists in the field to establish international research networks.

The research networks will establish scientific synergies and produce guidelines, recommendations or best practice frameworks, among other outputs that will be of value to the broader AMR research community. These will be made available through the JPIAMR website.

More information will be available at the end of September.

During the First Innovative Enterprise Week in Riga, the EIB Group and the European Commission (EC) have launched three new financial products to boost the competitiveness of innovative companies in Europe under the “InnovFin – EU Finance for Innovators” programme. 

JPIAMR particularly welcomes ‘InnovFin Infectious Diseases’ which will support that new drugs, vaccines and medical and diagnostic devices, also in the AMR field, are made available faster to people who need them. These financial products allow projects with a higher risk factor to receive loans. EUR 100m has been allocated initially to each of the three products to kick-start the initiatives.

Read press release

On 12 May 2015, JPIAMR closed its 2^nd call for proposals with 16 first stage proposals submitted. Proposals came from 10 different organisations in 9 countries; Argentina, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland and the US. This call was looking for proposals to repurpose neglected antibiotics and characterise antibiotics, or antibiotic and non-antibiotic combinations to overcome bacterial antibiotic resistance. The call topic was one of the highlights of discussion at the recent Uppsala Health Summit, 2-3 June 2015, which brought together leading players in the field to discuss future actions to combat AMR.

The proposals are now going through the peer review process and successful first stage proposals will be invited, at the end of June, to submit full proposals by 25 August 2015. The final awarded projects will be announced in November 2015.

Second joint call

On 8 June 2015, world leaders gathered at the G7 meeting voiced strong support for the the World Health Organization’s (WHO) first Global Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR). In line with JPIAMR’s vision and goals, WHO’s Global Action Plan which recognises a two-fold approach to combating AMR:

• Conserving the effectiveness of existing and future antimicrobials; and
• Engaging in research and development for new antimicrobials, vaccines, treatment alternatives and rapid diagnostic tools.

The G7 group outlined the One Health approach, which encompasses all areas of human and animal health, as well as agriculture and the environment, and acknowledged the need for a holistic approach, alongside concrete measures, to retain the effectiveness of antimicrobial agents.

• Foster prudent use of antibiotics
• Increase knowledge and responsible use of antibiotics
• Phase out the use of antibiotics for growth promotion in animal husbandry in the absence of risk analysis
• Increase awareness, knowledge, prevention and control of infections
• Strengthen surveillance of existing and emerging patterns of AMR to help develop effective strategies to fight it
• Stimulate innovation and increase basic research
• Develop and improve access to alternative therapies, vaccines and rapid point-of-care diagnostics
• Pool national efforts and hold a G7 meeting to promote the responsible use of antibiotics and share best practices

These are all commitments in line with JPIAMR’s ambitions and the initiative fully supports the ‘One Health’ approach. Investing in research and taking on a holistic approach is key to combat antimicrobial resistance.