The Federal Ministry of Education, has urged the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) to make its Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) campaign nationwide.
Mr Peters Ojonuba, School Health Programme coordinator, Federal Ministry of Education, made the call on Monday in Abuja, at an event to sensitise students in selected private secondary schools in Abuja on antibiotic resistance and threat to humans, animals and the environment, via puzzle, quiz and spelling bee.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that as part of the activities to commemorate the 2021 National antimicrobial awareness tagged, “Stop Resistance,” the NCDC, through the World Health Organisation (WHO) and Breakthrough Action-Nigeria (BA-N), engaged students and their teachers.
Ojonuba said the campaign should not be limited to selected private schools in the FCT, and that it should be expanded nationwide.
He also appealed to the organisers to include doctors, nurses and other health workers that operated within the school health service (clinics and sick bays.)
“To prevent and control the spread of antimicrobial resistance, we can only use them when prescribed by certified health professionals.
“Never demand antibiotics if your health worker says you don’t need them, and always follow your health worker’s advice when using antibiotics and other antimicrobial medicines,” he said.
He added that students were change agents who had been taught to be creative and innovative.
“They have also been developed to imbibe the attributes of creativity such as fluency, originality, flexibility, sensitivity, elaboration, divergent thinking and redefinition, thereby contributing to the attainment of both national and international goals through competitions,” said Ojonuba.
Dr. Abiodun Egwuenu, Antimicrobial Resistance Programme Coordinator, NCDC, said the aim of the programme was to sensitise students in selected private secondary schools in Abuja on antibiotic resistance and the threat it posed to humans, animals and the environment.
Egwuenu said students who performed extraordinarily in each category would be featured in the National AMR newsletter and assigned roles as antibiotic champions.
She noted that the 2021 World Antibiotics Day aided a global health and development threat, noting that it required urgent multi-sectoral action.
She added that the risk that AMR posed was quite scary, which included an increase in cost of healthcare, treatment failure; even with the most effective drugs, and above all fatality.
“Nigerians can fight AMR through proper sanitation and hygiene, to rational prescription and dispensing of antimicrobials, avoiding self medication and adherence to prescribed medication till it is completed,”she advised.
NAN reports that the 2021 WAAW is a major global campaign that takes place annually to create awareness of AMR and encourage best practices among public health workers and policy makers to slow the development and spread of drug resistance.
World Antibiotics Day was held on Nov. 12.
The competitions were held to raise awareness about antimicrobial resistance, which is the ability of a microorganisam like bacteria, viruses and some parasites to stop an antimicrobial such as an antibiotic or antiviral from working against it. (NAN)
