Invest more funds to discover new antibiotics.
- 1,181 Signatures
(Estimated Final Signatures: 1,185 - 1 added in the past 24hrs)
We can’t let antibiotics stop working. Not in our lifetime. We need to stop this global crisis from becoming the next pandemic. We urgently need the government to allocate additional funding into research, so that scientists can discover effective new antibiotics before it’s too late.
Found: Bacteria are rapidly learning to resist antibiotics.
Jan. 22 2024
Source Page: MHRA introduces new restrictions for fluoroquinolone antibioticsFound: MHRA introduces new restrictions for fluoroquinolone antibiotics
Jan. 22 2024
Source Page: Fluoroquinolone antibiotics: must now only be prescribed when other commonly recommended antibiotics are inappropriateFound: Fluoroquinolone antibiotics: must now only be prescribed when other commonly recommended antibiotics
Jan. 22 2024
Source Page: Fluoroquinolone antibiotics: must now only be prescribed when other commonly recommended antibiotics are inappropriateFound: Fluoroquinolone antibiotics: must now only be prescribed when other commonly recommended antibiotics
Asked by: Lord Campbell-Savours (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the case for reviewing the expiry dates of antibiotics, including in respect of savings for public expenditure.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), the Government agency responsible for ensuring that medicines and medical devices work and are acceptably safe, has not made an assessment on the case for reviewing the expiry dates of antibiotics.
Medicine expiry dates, including for antibiotics, are necessary to ensure that the safety and effectiveness of a medicine is maintained over its long-term shelf life. The active ingredient in many medicines can degrade over time resulting in a loss of potency or the formation of impurities in the product. Physical changes to a medicine such as discolouration, may also occur upon prolonged storage. Medicine expiry dates are supported by stability studies completed by the pharmaceutical company, which demonstrate that a medicine remains safe and effective throughout its shelf life. Any change to the expiry date of a medicine requires an independent review of the stability data by the MHRA.
Companies can and often do extend the shelf life of their medicines once the product is on the market, and as additional stability data become available. It is not possible, however, to extend the expiry date of all medicines unilaterally in the absence of supporting stability data.
Asked by: Fleur Anderson (Labour - Putney)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether her Department has had discussions with stakeholders on antibiotic line flushing.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
Officials from the Department have not had any recent discussions with stakeholders on antibiotic line flushing. Good clinical practice is to flush an intravenous line with saline after a medicine has been administered, to ensure the full dose is delivered to the patient. This is not unique to antibiotics.
Nov. 01 2023
Source Page: Sales of veterinary antibiotics in the UK reach lowest ever levelFound: Sales of veterinary antibiotics in the UK reach lowest ever level
Nov. 01 2023
Source Page: Sales of veterinary antibiotics in the UK reach lowest ever levelFound: Sales of veterinary antibiotics in the UK reach lowest ever level
Asked by: Daniel Zeichner (Labour - Cambridge)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether his Department is taking steps with Cabinet colleagues to help reduce the risk of antimicrobial resistance in humans arising from the overuse of antibiotics on farms.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government takes a ‘One-Health’ approach to antimicrobial resistance (AMR) as set out in the ‘UK 5-year action plan for antimicrobial resistance 2019 to 2024’, which is underpinned by the UK’s 20-year Vision to Contain and Control AMR by 2040. Defra is a co-signatory with the Department of Health and Social Care on the 5-year National Acton Plan (NAP) and 20-year vision on AMR, and Defra leads on delivering the animal, plant and environment elements. The AMR NAP lays out the UK Government’s commitment to reducing unnecessary use of antibiotics in animals to reduce the risk of development and spread of AMR in animals and humans, while safeguarding animal health and welfare. A key component of this plan is to reduce the need for antibiotics, which is achieved through good farm management, biosecurity and disease prevention.
In the UK, we have a well-established antimicrobial use and resistance surveillance programme, which includes monitoring of sales and use of antibiotics in animals as well as routine monitoring of AMR in major food-producing species, healthy pigs and poultry. These surveillance programmes allow us to monitor progress and results are published every year in the UK Veterinary Antibiotic Resistance Sales and Surveillance (UK-VARSS) report.
The recently published UK-VARSS report shows that sales of antibiotics in food-producing animals are at their lowest ever level, with a 59% reduction since 2014. This highlights the success of the UK’s voluntary and collaborative approach between the Government and the farming and veterinary sectors to make sustainable reductions in antibiotic use while ensuring high animal health and welfare. The report also highlights that sales of highest priority, critically important antibiotics have reduced by 82% since 2014 and account for less than half a percent of total sales. This is to ensure that these medically important antibiotics are protected for use in humans.
The newly published third edition of the UK’s One Health report, a joint report from the Veterinary Medicines Directorate and the UK Health and Security Agency, brings together antibiotic use and resistance data for people and animals. Sales of antibiotics in 2019 show that approximately two thirds of antibiotics are used in people while one third are used in animals. This report demonstrates the Government’s One Health approach to tackling AMR to keep antibiotics working in both people and animals.
The UK is now in the process of developing the second five-year NAP, which will run from 2024-2029. This will build on progress made in the 2019-2024 NAP and set out challenging ambitions and actions for the next five years, which will set us on course for achieving our long-term national and international ambitions.
Asked by: Ruth Jones (Labour - Newport West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to reduce the potential impact of increased antimicrobial resistance caused by the overuse of antibiotics on industrial farms on human health.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The Government takes a cross-governmental, One-Health approach to antimicrobial resistance (AMR) as set out in the UK 5-year National Action Plan for antimicrobial resistance. Through the National Action Plan, activity is delivered across the four nations of the United Kingdom on human health, animal health, food, environment, research, and surveillance. The plan is available at the following link:
The UK is committed to reducing unnecessary use of antibiotics in animals to reduce the risk of the development and spread of AMR in animals and humans. The recently published UK Veterinary Antimicrobial Resistance and Sales Surveillance report shows that sales of antibiotics in food producing animals are at their lowest ever level, with a 59% reduction since 2014. The report is available at the following link: