National group set up to tackle rising antibiotic resistance

In a bid to tackle the growing crisis of antibiotic resistance in humans and animals, the Department of Heath and Department of Agriculture have formed a new national joint committee for the first time.

Leaders from medical, veterinary and pharmaceutical professions gathered for the fourth annual antibiotic awareness event at the Royal College of Physicians in Dublin today.

Speakers emphasised the rise in antimicrobial resistance in Ireland was one of the greatest potential threats to human and animal health with serious consequences.

The Department of Health's chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan said urgent and immediate action was needed to combat the antimicrobial resistance (AMR).

“We are in danger of entering a post-antibiotic era,” he said.

“An era in which the dramatic falls in morbidity and mortality from infectious diseases we have witnessed are reversed and simple infections once again become killer diseases; an era in which medical procedures such as neonatal care, hip and joint replacements, organ transplants and cancer therapies become impossibly dangerous because of the risks of associated infections, which we cannot treat effectively.”

Speaking at the launch, Martin Blake, chief veterinary officer of the Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine, said human and animal diseases were interconnected.

Mr Blake said setting up the National Interdepartmental Antimicrobial Resistance Consultative Committee was an important step towards ensuring the health of people, animals and the environment.

Dr Tony Cox, president of the The Irish College of General Practitioners (ICGP), said nursing home residents in Ireland were more than twice as likely to be on a antibiotic than any other European country.

“It’s a frightening and it is embarrassing to Ireland. We have to do better,” he said.