Antibiotic resistance prevention in Africa

The USA-headquartered Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics has announced plans to explore ways of preventing millions of avoidable deaths in Africa, with the help of a grant by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Stuart Levy, the APUA's president and professor of medicine and microbiology at Tuft's University School of Medicine in Boston, Massachusetts, said: "because of rapidly increasing antibiotic resistance, no currently available antibiotic can be assumed to be active against a particular pathogen. Continual monitoring is needed to determine the right drug choice."

The Gates Foundation donation will be used for several activities, including: organizing fast-track delivery systems for medicines in Uganda and Zambia, improving the proper dispensing of pharmaceutical products via legitimate channels; and monitoring illegitimate distribution which, in Africa, often involves street peddlars of unreliably-sourced drugs.