Goal

The aim is to define optimal levels of Access, Watch, and Reserve (AWaRe) antibiotic use for 186 countries based on population health needs by analysing data on infection burden, comorbidities, demographics, healthcare infrastructure, and antibiotic resistance patterns, the project estimates country-specific antibiotic use in DDD/1000 inhabitants/day (DID).

Lead

Aislinn Cook – City St George’s, University of London

What we did

Using data from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD), Global Research on Antimicrobial Resistance (GRAM), World Bank, and IQVIA, we group 186 countries into “peer” clusters to enable benchmarking and estimation of optimal antibiotic use by AWaRe category based on infection burden and AWaRe Book guidance.

Key learnings

The findings indicate that the global Access target of 70% is achievable. Lower income countries required more antibiotics and more Watch and Reserve antibiotics than higher income countries. Country-level optimal use is estimated in DID by AWaRe allowing for comparison of observed vs. expected for countries where antibiotic use data is available. This analysis provides a methodology for estimating optimal volumes of AWaRe antibiotics and for identifying access and overuse patterns to inform national policy setting.

Outputs

Benchmarking AWaRe: estimating optimal levels of AWaRe antibiotic use in 186 countries, territories and areas based on clinical infection and resistance burden

Funder

The Wellcome Trust