Media Release
Manipal, Nov 19: Department of Infectious Diseases, Kasturba Medical College and Hospital, Manipal organized an International conference on combating Antimicrobial Resistance on November, 18 to observe World Antimicrobial Awareness week 2021. The theme for this year is “spread awareness and stop resistance”.
Lt. Gen. (Dr) M D Venkatesh, vice chancellor, MAHE Manipal was the chief guest of the program and said that Antimicrobial resistance has been declared as one of the top 10 public health threats to humanity by the World Health Organization. Today Antimicrobial resistance kills one person every minute and is a very complex problem which requires united multisectoral approach. Some of the reasons for accelerated threat are- 1) over use/ misuse of Antibiotics, 2) wide spread use of antibiotics in livestock, agricultural activities, poor diagnostic and prescription practices 3) public health issues such as hygiene, sanitization and non-availability of clean drinking water. Hence in the year 2015, a global action plan was initiated by WHO to tackle the antimicrobial resistance.
Dr Ramasubramanian, Senior Infectious Disease consultant, Apollo Hospital, Chennai and the President of Clinical Infectious Diseases Society of India was the Guest of Honor. In his speech he mentioned that previously, there were not many specialists in the field of infectious diseases in India. Now the Infectious disease departments have developed across many parts of the country.
He congratulated Dr Kavitha Saravu for organizing the conference and conveyed his best to the department. He also urged all the institutional heads and policy makers to strengthen the antimicrobial surveillance and ensure that the policies are practiced effectively.
Dr Sharath Kumar Rao, Dean KMC Manipal welcomed the gathering.
The organizing Chair, Dr Kavitha Saravu, professor and Head, Department of Infectious Diseases gave an overview about the conference. The conference will be held over 5 days featuring 11 speakers deliberating on different aspects of antimicrobial resistance and stewardship. Other departments who partnered were Dept. of Emergency Medicine, KMC Manipal, Departments of Medicine and Microbiology from KMC Mangalore, Department of Pharmacy Practice from MCOPS and Division of Infectious Diseases, Wayne State University, USA.
Dr Sneha Deepak Mallya, Associate Professor, Department of Community Medicine, proposed the vote of thanks. Dr Avinash Shetty, Medical Superintendent, KH Manipal was present in the conference.