The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared antimicrobial resistance (AMR) one of the top 10 global public health threats facing humanity. AMR burden is higher in low-and-middle-income countries (LMICs) where, in recent decades, incidence and mortality from healthcare-associated infections (HAI) due to multidrug resistant organisms (MDRO) have dramatically increased. For example, neonatal sepsis is the third most common cause of neonatal deaths and multidrug-resistant Gram-negative bacteria are now the leading cause of sepsis among hospitalized neonates in south Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, including Botswana.1,2 One in three newborns with an MDRO bloodstream infection will die.3 In 2021, to respond to the global threat of AMR, U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) announced the launch of a global network of networks to tackle the problem of AMR and healthcare-associated infections (HAIs). The network, called Global Antimicrobial Resistance Laboratory and Response Network, solicited funding applications; in December of 2021, Botswana was announced as recipient of a 5-year cooperative agreement following the successful application for funding for a comprehensive AMR surveillance project. The project was developed by investigators from Botswana-UPenn Partnership (BUP) in collaboration with Botswana's Ministry of Health & Wellness (MOHW) and the University of Botswana (UB).
The aims of this project, called Surveillance of Healthcare-associated infections & Antimicrobial Resistance, or SHARE, are to 1) enhance laboratory capacity to detect emerging AMR patterns; 2) strengthen hospital epidemiology programs to use data to prevent, detect, and contain emerging AMR threats; 3) deploy study teams to answer critical public health surveillance questions, and 4) to build a national network of infection prevention and control (IPC) resources to prevent, detect, and contain emerging infectious disease threats