Reducing antibiotic prescribing and addressing the global problem of antibiotic resistance by targeted hygiene in the home and everyday life settings: A Position Paper

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is one of the greatest threats to global health today.¹ Although global and national AMR action plans are in place, infection prevention and control is primarily discussed in the context of healthcare facilities with home and everyday life settings barely addressed.

As seen with the recent global pandemic of coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, everyday hygiene measures can play an important role in containing and delaying the threat from infectious microorganisms and when employed at other times, are likely to reduce disease for which antibiotics would be prescribed or even mis-prescribed.

At the time of writing this review and according to Dr Maarten van Dongen, founder of AMR Insights, the global deaths from SARS-CoV-2 between November 2019 and March 2020 reached 16,500 with many affected succumbing to secondary bacterial infections. In comparison, 2000 people worldwide die as a result of resistant bacteria every day, amounting to 258,000 people dying from the effects of AMR within a similar time-frame.