Smart Regulation of Antibiotic Use in India Blog: WHO launches campaign for adoption of AWaRe tool
Tue 2 July 2019
On 18 June 2019, the World Health Organisation (WHO) launched the ‘AdoptAWaRe, Handle antibiotics with care’ campaign urging governments to adopt the AWaRe (for Access, Watch and Reserve) tool to reduce the spread of AMR, adverse events and costs.
The WHO Essential Medicines List developed the AWaRe tool to contain rising AMR and making antibiotic use safer and more effective. It classifies antibiotics into three distinct groups:
- Access antibiotics offer the best therapeutic value, while minimising the potential of resistance.
- Watch antibiotics are only indicated for specific, limited number of infective syndromes.
- Reserve antibiotics are to be used only as a last resort for life-threatening infections due to multi-drug resistant bacteria.
The aims of the new WHO campaign are to increase the proportion of global consumption of antibiotics in the Access group to at least 60 per cent, and to reduce use of antibiotics most at risk of resistance from the Watch and Reserve groups.