4 key reflections from engaging hospitals in India for antibiotic stewardship

Next month experts will gather in Bangkok at a WHO-organized meeting – this to discuss the roll-out of WHO’s new toolkit on Antimicrobial stewardship programmes in health-care facilities in low- and middle-income countries. I context of this ReAct takes the opportunity to share its reflections from a ReAct-led stewardship project in rural secondary level hospitals in India.

In India, secondary level hospitals play a critical role in providing healthcare services to the community, but few actively implement any antibiotic stewardship measures. Full-scale antibiotic stewardship programs require many resources and are often not feasible in this setting.

In 2018, ReAct engaged and assisted a number of Indian hospitals to initiate work on antibiotic stewardship. Participating staff were primarily general physicians, pharmacists and microbiologists. Educational sessions in combination with interactive discussions and decision-making among participants, followed by hands-on work, were used to sensitize professionals working at the hospitals towards stewardship. Here we share four reflections from the process.