How to make our hospitals a safer place
Strategies for control and prevention of antibiotic resistance in Euopean hospitals.

(Updated 23rd September 2005) The European Commission has printed the highest priority, ARPAC project recommendations to control and prevent antibiotic resistance. These should be regarded as the minimum requirements to begin tackling the problem. The recommendations are available in six different languages. To view the recommendations, please click on the appropriate language below (these are in pdf format)

ENGLISH, GERMAN, FRENCH, ITALIAN, SPANISH, POLISH

 

The following ARPAC papers have been published:

· MacKenzie FM, Struelens MJ, Towner KJ, Gould IM, ARPAC Steering Group (2005). Report of the Consensus Conference of Antibiotic Resistance; Prevention and Control (ARPAC). Clinical Microbiology and Infection 11, 938 - 954

· Struelens M, Wagner D, Bruce J, MacKenzie FM, Cookson B, Voss A, van den Broek PJ, Gould IM, ARPAC Steering Group (2006). Status of Infection Control Policies and Organisation in European Hospitals, 2001: The ARPAC Study. Clinical Microbiology and Infection 12, 729-37

· MacKenzie FM, Monnet DL, Gould IM, ARPAC Steering Group (2006) Relationship between the number of different antibiotics used and the total use of antibiotics in European hospitals. Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy Advance Access published on July 19, 2006.

· Mackenzie FM, Bruce J, Van Looveren M, Cornaglia G, Gould IM, Goossens H, the ARPAC Steering Group (2006). Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing in European Hospitals: Report from the ARPAC Study. Clinical Microbiology and Infection Published article online: 7-Aug-2006 doi 10.1111/j.1469-0691.2006.01549.x

· MacKenzie FM, Bruce J, Struelens MJ, Goossens H, Mollison J, Gould IM, ARPAC Steering Group (2006), Antimicrobial drug use and infection control practices associated with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in European Hospitals. Clinical Microbiology and Infection (In Press)

Consensus Recommendations
"Control of antibiotic resistance in European Hospitals……
……….informing future evidence based practice"
22 - 24 November 2004

The above conference was co-hosted by the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID) and the Dutch Working party on Antibiotic Policies (SWAB).
The following links take you to the programme, abstracts, presentations that were made during the conference as well as the Consensus Recommendations that were presented on the final day (all files are portable document files). We emphasise that the Consensus Recommendations are very preliminary and still have to be cleaned up and finalised - what we are presenting are the actual, unmodified recommendations as presented at the meeting. A final report will be circulated early in 2005.

The goals of the ARPAC were to:
1. Lay the foundations for a better understanding of the emergence and epidemiology of antibiotic resistance in human pathogens
2. To evaluate and harmonise strategies for prevention and control of antibiotic resistant pathogens in European hospitals.

Click here to see the Conference Programme and abstract Book content.

These files are available in pdf format.