Asked by: Karin Smyth (Labour - Bristol South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to support research into anti-microbial resistance.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The Department commissions research through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) and welcomes funding applications for research into any aspect of human health, including anti-microbial resistance (AMR).
Over the last five years, the NIHR’s programme funding for AMR has totalled £88 million. This includes research that aims to reduce the need for antibiotics, optimising their use and supporting the development of new antimicrobials. This does not include NIHR infrastructure, which is fundamental to supporting all health research.
The NIHR has recently launched a competition for new Health Protection Research Units, in partnership with the UK Health Security Agency and academia, which will include multidisciplinary research to inform the prevention and control of AMR.
Mar. 12 2024
Source Page: Thousands more to train in future tech like AI as government unveils over £1.1 billion package to skill-up UKFound: developments in digital chemistry, including artificial intelligence, to help develop new drugs, such as antibiotics
Asked by: Karin Smyth (Labour - Bristol South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what progress she has made on delivering the UK 5-year action plan for antimicrobial resistance 2019 to 2024.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
A cross-Government, United Kingdom-wide delivery board monitors and oversees progress in delivering the National Action Plan on antimicrobial resistance (NAP AMR) for 2019 to 2024. The majority of the commitments in the NAP AMR have been assessed as either completed, or as on track for delivery.
Progress against the measurable ambitions in the NAP AMR is collated by the UK Health Security Agency, and reported to the delivery board. Significant progress has been made in further reducing antibiotic use in food producing animals, by 59% since 2014, and in humans, with an 8.8% reduction in overall antibiotic usage from 2014 to 2022. Progress has been slower in other areas, such as reducing the incidence of specific drug-resistant infections, due to the diverse nature of the underlying causes of these infections. Other key achievements from the NAP AMR programme over the past five years include:
- Piloting innovative ways of evaluating and paying for antibiotics on the National Health Service;
- Securing antimicrobial resistance commitments on several ministerial tracks during the UK G7 presidency in 2021; and
- £19.2 million investment into One Health Surveillance through the Pathogen Surveillance in Agriculture, Food and Environment Programme.
The Department has commissioned the Policy Innovation and Evaluation Research Unit (PIRU) at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine to conduct an evaluation of the 2019 to 2024 NAP AMR, to inform future policy development and implementation. Findings from the PIRU evaluation will be published following the peer-review process.
The forthcoming NAP AMR for 2024 to 2029 is under development, in consultation with a broad range of stakeholders across different sectors, and informed by the findings from the antimicrobial resistance Call for Evidence. This will set us on course for achieving our long-term ambitions, set out in the Government’s 20-year vision to contain, control, and mitigate antimicrobial resistance by 2040.
Mar. 08 2024
Source Page: Call for comments: draft risk management evaluation of a substance proposed as a persistent organic pollutant (POP) 2024Found: The Journal of Antibiotics 63, 101 -111. https://doi.org/10.1038/ja.2010.5 .
Mar. 08 2024
Source Page: Call for comments: draft risk management evaluation of a substance proposed as a persistent organic pollutant (POP) 2024Found: The Journal of Antibiotics 63, 101 -111. https://doi.org/10.1038/ja.2010.5 .
Mar. 07 2024
Source Page: Outbreak management in short term asylum seeker accommodationFound: bathroom or kitchen, so that they can advise on any additional preventive measures such as vaccination and antibiotics
Mentions:
1: Maguire, Ruth (SNP - Cunninghame South) by surgeons who do not have water to wash their hands, let alone to sterilise them, and there are no antibiotics - Speech Link
Mentions:
1: Lord Douglas-Miller (Con - Life peer) I am pleased to say that, in the farming community, we have reduced the use of antibiotics by over 50% - Speech Link
Government Response Mar. 06 2024
Committee: Science, Innovation and Technology CommitteeFound: the potential to be used as an antimicrobial, either in conjunction with, or as an alternative to, 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.