Question

1) Discuss the major risks of NOT implementing an Antimicrobial Stewardship Program (ASP), and then explain at least three (3) tenets of optimal antimicrobial therapy. Conclude with a paragraph on what you find most surprising, and why.

Answer 1

Antimicrobial stewardship is an important programme and it provides a way of optimizing use of antimicrobials in order to prevent the development of resistance which would further improve patient outcomes. If this is not implemented:

• Thousands of people would die of infections caused due to antibiotic-resistant pathogens around the world especially in rural areas
• Patients would mostly die of bacterial infections for which no active agents would be available.
• There would be a decreased rate of awaress amongst the patients and practitioners regarding the appropriate dose intake of the antibiotics
• Misuse of antibiotics would rapidly increase, such as in the very common scenario of the use of broad-spectrum antibiotics that would cover multidrug-resistant organisms in a patient whose infection would be acquired in the community or which could result in the failure to adjust antibiotics according to culture data, thus maintaining the patient on a regimen to which the organism would'nt be susceptible.