A small initiation towards reducing AMR
The Global challenge of AMR continues to accelerate especially within low- and middle-income countries. However, on the positive side it is becoming a more common topic of discussion and action within health care education and training programs. CE4AMR recently spoke to group of 3rd year medical students from Kathmandu Medical College, Nepal, who have been inspired to enter a digital AMR solution to a global competition this autumn. Shova Sapkota, Selika Shakya, Merina Pandey and Gehendra Mukhiya tell us more.
“With peaking problem of antibiotic resistance in Nepal, we four medical students from Kathmandu Medical College, have applied for an online design sprint competition organized by Innovate4health with a theme that revolves around antimicrobial resistance. As we wait for the result of the selection process based on our proposed idea, we are glad to share our idea in CE4AMR platform and we hope to find potential collaborators for the implementation of our idea.
Our team “ABHINAWAN” has proposed the idea to develop a mobile application called “SAMAYAMAI”(in both English and Nepali version) which mainly focuses on surveillance of antibiotic consumption by the patients. The app which we have decided to launch as a pilot in our own institution will initially be promoted by the physicians after prescribing antibiotics to their patients. The patients then proceed along the app after entering their purchased antibiotic (saved in their profile for future surveillance) and personal details.
The app will show the color coding of their respective antibiotics according to the AWaRe criteria (Green- Access, Yellow-watch and Red- reserve). They are then requested to put a tick mark after every antibiotic intake which if not done on time, will be notified to them.
Since we have very few effective surveillance sites in Nepal and because majority of antibiotic consumers in Nepal rarely complete the full course of antibiotic, we believe our small step towards surveillance of antibiotic consumption will be significant”
The team are hugely enthusiastic about the potential for their app to contribute to responsible antimicrobial use in Nepal. We will keep track of the progress in the competition and let you know how they get on!