Doctors Without Borders releases 2023 activity report on antimicrobial resistance

Although humanitarian needs are the primary catalyst for Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières’ (MSF) actions, enhancing quality of care is equally imperative.

Doctors Without Borders has committed to ensuring effective infection prevention and management within health care facilities, promoting judicious use of antimicrobials, tailoring empirical prescriptions to local resistance patterns, and when possible, ensuring that treatment is informed by diagnostics. These targeted interventions around antimicrobial resistance (AMR) are designed to enhance patient-centered care by providing treatments tailored to the characteristics of a patient's infection.

Since initiating these efforts in 2014, Doctors Without Borders has made significant progress in the implementation of infection prevention and control (IPC), antimicrobial stewardship (AMS), and improved access to quality microbiological diagnostics and surveillance across Doctors Without Borders projects. More than 30 projects now have access to microbiology supporting their IPC and AMS programs, distributed among 16 countries. This progress has fostered a paradigm shift within the organization, as actions to limit the spread of AMR increasingly become an inherent—and very necessary—part of its medical humanitarian care.

Unfortunately, the actions needed to successfully limit and manage the spread of AMR are many, both within and beyond our operations, with a paucity of actors trying to meet these needs. As a global community working together, we can and must do more to prevent and slow the spread of AMR—wherever it may emerge. Ultimately, global collaborations can safeguard communities from worsened rates of resistant infections, conserve treatment options for future patients, and avert a looming humanitarian crisis.