Hyderabad: On the occasion of the World Antimicrobial Awareness Week (WAAW), major landmarks in the city were lit up in blue on Wednesday as part of the ‘Go Blue’ campaign initiated by the World Health Organization.
Telangana special chief secretary of municipal administration and urban development (MA&UD) department Arvind Kumar took to Twitter and shared pictures of the landmarks filled with blue light. He said that Hyderabad has reaffirmed its commitment to WHO’s antimicrobial resistance ‘Go Blue’ campaign by lighting up these important landmarks.
In May 2015, a global action plan to tackle AMR was endorsed at the World Health Assembly,
supported by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World
Organization for Animal Health (OIE).
The first objective of the plan is to ‘improve awareness and understanding of antimicrobial resistance through effective communication, education, and training’. To help achieve this objective, FAO, OIE, and the World Health Organization (WHO) (collectively known as the Tripartite) have jointly supported WAAW since 2015, together with the general public, students, policymakers, and professionals from various sectors around the world.
WAAW Campaign Objectives
• To make AMR a globally recognized issue with the engagement of all sectors – human, animal, plant, and environment, a ‘One Health approach.
• To raise awareness of the need to protect antimicrobial efficacy through prudent and responsible
use.
• To increase recognition of the roles that individuals, governments, civil society organizations, and
human, animal, environmental, and plant health, as well as agriculture professionals, must all play in
tackling antimicrobial resistance.
• To encourage behaviour change towards prudent use of antimicrobials across all relevant sectors
and convey the message that simple actions can make a big difference.
World Antimicrobial Awareness Week (WAAW) is celebrated from 18-24 November every year. The 2021 theme, ‘Spread Awareness, Stop Resistance’, calls on One Health stakeholders, policymakers, health care providers, and the general public to be Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Awareness champions.