During the opening speech, Ms. Barbara Kerstiens, Head of Unit – Combatting Diseases, at the Directorate-General for Research and Innovation of the European Commission stressed on the strong investment of the European Union in supporting research & development when combatting diseases as well as AMR, the “silent killer” of our century.  

“Pandemics know no borders, and neither should our policies. We strongly believe that to tackle complex problems such as antimicrobial resistance, global collaboration is vital, and no single country can address global health threats alone.

The European Union is addressing AMR from different angles, through different vehicles, always with the idea to address a global issue, and that by working together we will achieve a higher impact. It is clear that today's workshop is an important event to maintain attention on the need for more AMR research and innovation and to discuss this in a global collaborative environment.” She said.

Dr. Yonghong Xiao, Vice-Director of the State Key Laboratory for Diagnosis & Treatment of Infectious Diseases, Zhejiang University in Hangzhou (China) shared best practices in China in controlling the use of antibiotics. “Before our nationwide special campaign for the rational use of antibiotics starting in 2011, antibiotic consumption in our country was very high. Drug consumption in hospitals consisted of over 25% antibiotics, while now this number is at about 10%, thus an over 40% decrease. We see this as a great achievement.”

Dr. Ramunas Freigofas, First Counsellor for Health and Food Safety within the Delegation of the European Union to China said he was glad to see a very broad range of experts connected at the workshop because the whole idea is to interlink different countries, to share experience and know-how. Interactive discussions in working groups concerned new technologies, new generation of medicines, and public-private partnership to raise funding and promote developments in this area. 

“International cooperation is key to connect with each other at different levels: government, science and stakeholder levels. The implementation of commitments made on antimicrobial resistance in international fora and intensified collaborative cooperation are essential elements.” He said.

Dr. Ramanan Laxminarayan, Director and Founder of the One Health Trust (USA) challenged everyone on reducing the use of antibiotics to control the AMR by adopting a One Health approach.

“Is it possible to raise meat without antibiotics? The answer is absolutely, except for the fact that it would require changing the methods of raising meat. This is really the opportunity for an innovation revolution in adopting a One Health approach to controlling AMR.

Hygiene is a really important piece of the puzzle, as much as biosafety and biosecurity. I am hopeful because newer production facilities tend to be better able to respect biosafety and biosecurity than older facilities, and a lot of these newer production facilities are emerging in low- and middle-income countries.”

This workshop is the last of the series of four flagship events on EU-Asia AMR started in October 2021 with the AMR International high-level Conference in Thailand and followed by 3 technical workshops concerning India, Japan and China. These interactive workshops respectively focused on human health, animal health as well as research and innovation. During these events, key experts and stakeholders from public and private sectors had the opportunity to share experiences and best practices as well as scope areas of further cooperation among countries in Asia, with support from the EU under One Health approach.

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Background:

This series of high-level international conference and workshops is funded by the European Union. More details on the work of the European Commission on AMR are available here.