Authors
Aravind Reghukumara, Amogh B Jb, Mariyam Rajee Alexc, Heera Hassand
a Department of Infectious Diseases, Government Medical College Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India;
b Former Intern, Government Medical College Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India;
c Former Senior Resident, Department of Community Medicine, Government Medical College Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India;
d Department of Microbiology, Government Medical College Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India*
Abstract
AWaRe classification was introduced by World Health Organization [WHO] in 2017 for minimizing the further emergence and spread of antimicrobial resistance. AWaRe classifies antibiotics into three stewardship groups with traffic signal like colour codes: Access, Watch and Reserve to emphasize the importance of optimal use and potential for antimicrobial resistance. A visual cue based antibiotic prescriber software application system based on AWaRe colour codes will help in enhancing awareness, encourage judicious antibiotic use, and to mitigate the knowledge- behavior gap in antibiotic prescribing. This software will help to minimize the prescription of Watch and Reserve category antibiotics in hospitals and thereby promote the use of Access category antibiotics. Through this the project aims to contribute to the attainment of the WHO target of having 60% of total antibiotic prescriptions to be from the Access category.
Keywords: Antimicrobial Resistance, AWaRe Classification, Antibiotic Stewardship