From a human health perspective, Olivier Praz, SDC Health Focal Point, presented the SDC- funded diagnostics for febrile children illnesses developed by FIND that allow to better target antibiotic-based treatments, thereby preventing misuse of drugs. In a livelihood and health perspective, Lensse Gobu Bonga, programme manager at the Swiss Embassy in Ethiopia presented two One Health projects (JOHI and HEAL) that are currently running in the Horn of Africa. She highlighted the importance of animal-human interactions in pastoralist communities, to whom One Health Units (OHUs) provide integrated medical and veterinary services, with potential for raising awareness on antimicrobial use, including contraband drugs, and monitoring AMR. Finally, two colleagues presented current efforts in waste water management. Stuart Wallis, programme manager and health focal point at Humanitarian Aid, presented recent developments to monitor bacteria in emergency settings with the Faecal Sludge Field Laboratory, for which monitoring could be extended to resistant bacteria strains with great scale-up opportunities. Finally, SDC co-created and supports RAMP, the Responsible Antibiotic Manufacturing Platform, to address the release of antibiotics in waste water during the production process in partnership between procurers, regulators and companies. Sakshi Dasgupta, from the Swiss Embassy in India, gave an overview of RAMP and the Indian context, one of the main antibiotic manufacturing hubs in the world. This last example is the most direct SDC intervention in the fight against AMR.

SDC Learning Event: Antimicrobial resistance - a silent pandemic