Antibiotics

WHO/Europe launches online course for clinicians on prescribing and using antibiotics wisely

11-01-2018

WHO/A. Kristensen

Testing for antimicrobial susceptibility provides vital information to clinicians and guides decisions about patient treatment.

WHO/Europe has launched a newly developed online course that aims to equip clinicians with the information they need to prescribe antibiotics appropriately and wisely. This free course, titled “Antimicrobial stewardship: A competency-based approach”, is available via the OpenWHO platform.

While enrolment is open to anyone, the course is particularly relevant for clinicians who frequently prescribe antibiotics. The discovery of these life-saving drugs is among the most important advances of medicine in the 20th century. However, data increasingly shows widespread misuse of antimicrobials across all health-care settings. This misuse contributes to the emergence of multidrug-resistant organisms, which threaten to undermine the effectiveness of antibiotics./.../