Our microbiology experts recently travelled to Austria for a World Health Organization meeting to showcase the latest efforts to combat global antimicrobial resistance.

Antimi­cro­bial resis­tance (AMR) is a major threat to mod­ern med­i­cine and glob­al health secu­ri­ty. The main cause of antibi­ot­ic resis­tance is antibi­ot­ic use. When we use antibi­otics, some bac­te­ria die but resis­tant bac­te­ria can sur­vive and even mul­ti­ply. The overuse of antibi­otics makes resis­tant bac­te­ria more common.

The World Health Orga­ni­za­tion (WHO) is work­ing on glob­al actions to address AMR across human, ani­mal, agri­cul­ture and the envi­ron­men­tal sectors.

The WHO AMR Sur­veil­lance and Qual­i­ty Assess­ment Col­lab­o­rat­ing Cen­tres Net­work (WHO AMR CC Net­work) is a glob­al part­ner­ship of insti­tu­tions brought togeth­er by the WHO to sup­port coun­tries to strength­en their response to AMR.

The Network’s mis­sion is to assist the WHO to sup­port coun­tries to build capac­i­ty to devel­op and imple­ment AMR sur­veil­lance. NSW Health Pathology’s Rand­wick lab­o­ra­to­ry plays a cen­tral role in this effort.

The NSWHP Rand­wick WHO Col­lab­o­rat­ing Cen­tre, led by Pro­fes­sor Mon­i­ca Lahra, is serv­ing as the coor­di­nat­ing Col­lab­o­rat­ing Cen­tre for the WHO of the AMR CC Net­work for 2024–2026.g

Pro­fes­sor Mon­i­ca Lahra (Micro­bi­ol­o­gist and WHO CC Direc­tor), Pro­fes­sor Sebas­ti­aan van Hal (Micro­bi­ol­o­gist and Direc­tor NSWHP RPA Genomics), Dr Rob George (Micro­bi­ol­o­gist and Direc­tor of Med­ical Ser­vices) and Ms Savan­nah Gill (Pro­gramme Man­ag­er, WHO CC) from NSW Health Pathol­o­gy WHO Col­lab­o­rat­ing Cen­tre trav­elled to Vien­na, Aus­tria in April 2025.

They attend­ed the 5th WHO CC AMR Net­work Meet­ing and WHO activ­i­ties at the 2025 Euro­pean Soci­ety of Clin­i­cal Micro­bi­ol­o­gy and Infec­tious Dis­eases (ESCMID) Glob­al Congress.

The WHO host­ed a ded­i­cat­ed booth co-host­ed by NSW Health Pathol­o­gy and Robert Koch Insti­tute, Ger­many to raise aware­ness of the Net­work and its work.

Hun­dreds of del­e­gates par­tic­i­pat­ed in dis­cus­sions at the WHO AMR Net­work booth, with infor­ma­tion about the Net­work and a diverse selec­tion of WHO and AMR CC Net­work mate­ri­als show­cased, gen­er­at­ing sus­tained inter­est through­out the event.

The 5th WHO AMR CC Net­work Annu­al Meet­ing was co-host­ed by the WHO Gene­va, NSWHP WHO CC and the Robert Koch Insti­tute Ger­many. This meet­ing brought togeth­er par­tic­i­pants from 36 key insti­tu­tions across the globe to review progress, align pri­or­i­ties, and strength­en col­lab­o­ra­tion across the network.

The meet­ing fea­tured pre­sen­ta­tions from WHO Head­quar­ters high­light­ing WHO’s cur­rent strate­gic and oper­a­tional pri­or­i­ties, AMR Sur­veil­lance and Lab­o­ra­to­ry capac­i­ty, antimi­cro­bial use sur­veil­lance and antimi­cro­bial stewardship.

Pro­fes­sor Lahra gave a pre­sen­ta­tion on the recent work of the NSW Health Pathol­o­gy WHO Col­lab­o­rat­ing Cen­tre AUS-72, high­light­ing net­work activ­i­ties and exper­tise align­ing with strate­gic goals for the Network.

“We are proud to be lead­ing this sur­veil­lance work here in Aus­tralia and ensur­ing that we are coor­di­nat­ing our glob­al response to this major health threat,” Prof Lahra said.

NSW Health Pathology’s lead­er­ship in the WHO AMR Sur­veil­lance CC Net­work meet­ing rein­forces its vital role in the inter­na­tion­al response to AMR and its ongo­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion with WHO in chal­leng­ing times.

(Top pho­to: Prof Sebas­ti­aan van Hal, Prof Mon­i­ca Lahra, Dr Insik Kong (WHO Gene­va), Dr Rob George, Dr Savan­nah Gill)

What can you do to help?

The more we use antibi­otics, the more chance of antimi­cro­bial resis­tance. But there are things we can all do every day to help reduce antibi­ot­ic resistance.*

1. Pre­vent infec­tions by reg­u­lar­ly wash­ing your hands and keep­ing up to date with vaccinations

2. Pre­vent food-borne infec­tions by wash­ing fruits and veg­eta­bles and cook­ing food properly

3. Under­stand that antibi­otics only work against bac­te­ria. They do not work for colds and flus which are caused by viruses

4. Only take antibi­otics when they are pre­scribed for you, don’t use or share left­over antibiotics

5. Fol­low your health professional’s instruc­tions when you are pre­scribed antibiotics

*Source: https://www.amr.gov.au/what-you-can-do

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