Follow infection prevention and control guidelines (including screening at-risk patients when indicated):

• Infection Prevention Guidelines
• Infection Control Tools for Healthcare Settings
• Hand Hygiene Guidelines

• Ask patients if they have recently received care in another facility or travelled to another country (infection can spread easily across borders).

• Ensure your patients receive recommended vaccines, and talk to them and their families about:

• Preventing infections
• Keeping scrapes and wounds clean
• Managing chronic conditions
• Seeking medical care when an infection is not getting better
• Understanding when antibiotics are needed

• Alert the receiving facility when transferring patients who are colonized or infected with antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

• Educate patients on ways to prevent spread.

• Stay informed of current outbreaks.

Antibiotics save lives, but any time they are used it can cause side effects and lead to antibiotic resistance.

• Follow clinical and treatment guidelines to ensure appropriate antibiotic use.

• Consider fungal infections for patients with respiratory infections that do not respond to antibiotics, for example:

• Coccidioidomycosis
• Histoplasmosis
• Blastomycosis

• Watch for signs and symptoms of sepsis.
• Perform appropriate diagnostic tests to guide antibiotic therapy, including correct drug, dose, and duration.
• Optimize TB therapy.

• Be aware of infections and resistance patterns in your facility and community.

• Ensure you are notified by lab immediately when antibiotic-resistant germs are identified in your patients.

• Inform patients and families if they have an antibiotic-resistant infection, as well as sexual partners when appropriate (e.g. gonorrhea).

• Know when to report cases and submit resistant isolates to the health department to help identify unusual resistance or treatment failures.

Antibiotic resistance is accelerated by the misuse and overuse of antibiotics, as well as poor infection prevention and control. Steps can be taken at all levels of society to reduce the impact and limit the spread of resistance.

Individuals

To prevent and control the spread of antibiotic resistance, individuals can:

·        doing their best to stay healthy and keep others healthy,

·        cleaning hands,

·        preparing food hygienically,

·        avoiding close contact with sick people,

·        practicing safer sex,

·        covering coughs,

·        staying home when sick, and

·        getting recommended vaccines,

·        taking the antibiotic exactly as prescribed,

·        Not sharing antibiotic with others,

·        Not saving them for later,

·        Not taking antibiotics prescribed for someone else,

Health professionals

To prevent and control the spread of antibiotic resistance, health professionals can:

• Prevent infections by ensuring your hands, instruments, and environments are clean.
• Only prescribe and dispense antibiotics when they are needed, according to current guidelines.
• Report antibiotic-resistant infections to surveillance teams.
• Talk to your patients about how to take antibiotics correctly, antibiotic resistance and the dangers of misuse.
• Talk to your patients about preventing infections (for example, vaccination, hand washing, safer sex, and covering nose and mouth when sneezing).

Agriculture sector

To prevent and control the spread of antibiotic resistance, the agriculture sector can:

• Only give antibiotics to animals under veterinary supervision.
• Not use antibiotics for growth promotion or to prevent diseases in healthy animals.
• Vaccinate animals to reduce the need for antibiotics and use alternatives to antibiotics when available.
• Promote and apply good practices at all steps of production and processing of foods from animal and plant sources.
• Improve biosecurity on farms and prevent infections through improved hygiene and animal welfare.

https://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/solutions-initiative/index.html

https://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/protecting_patients.html

https://www.cdc.gov/antibiotic-use/week/get-involved.html

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/antibiotic-resistance

https://www.cdc.gov/antibiotic-use/q-a.html