ARTÍCULO
TITULO

Characteristics of a Nationwide Voluntary Antibiotic Resistance Awareness Campaign in India; Future Paths and Pointers for Resource Limited Settings/Low and Middle Income Countries

Ashok J. Tamhankar    
Ramesh Nachimuthu    
Ravikant Singh    
Jyoti Harindran    
Gautam Kumar Meghwanshi    
Rajesh Kannan    
Nachimuthu Senthil Kumar    
Vikrant Negi    
Lijy Jacob    
Sayan Bhattacharyya    
Krushna Chandra Sahoo    
Vijay Kumar Mahadik    
Vishal Diwan    
Megha Sharma    
Ashish Pathak    
Smita U. Khedkar    
Dnyaneshwar Avhad    
Sonal Saxena    
Sandeep Nerkar    
Vaishali Venu    
Sandeep Kumar    
G. Shandeepan    
Khundrakpam Ranjit Singh    
Ridiamma Gashnga and Arvind KumaraddShow full author listremoveHide full author list    

Resumen

Antibiotic resistance has reached alarming proportions globally, prompting the World Health Organization to advise nations to take up antibiotic awareness campaigns. Several campaigns have been taken up worldwide, mostly by governments. The government of India asked manufacturers to append a ?redline? to packages of antibiotics as identification marks and conducted a campaign to inform the general public about it and appropriate antibiotic use. We investigated whether an antibiotic resistance awareness campaign could be organized voluntarily in India and determined the characteristics of the voluntarily organized campaign by administering a questionnaire to the coordinators, who participated in organizing the voluntary campaign India. The campaign characteristics were: multiple electro?physical pedagogical and participatory techniques were used, 49 physical events were organized in various parts of India that included lectures, posters, booklet/pamphlet distribution, audio and video messages, competitions, and mass contact rallies along with broadcast of messages in 11 local languages using community radio stations (CRS) spread all over India. The median values for campaign events were: expenditure?3000 Indian Rupees/day (US$~47), time for planning?1 day, program spread?4 days, program time?4 h, direct and indirect reach of the message?respectively 250 and 500 persons/event. A 2 min play entitled ?Take antibiotics as prescribed by the doctor? was broadcast 10 times/day for 5 days on CRS with listener reach of ~5 million persons. More than 85%ofcoordinators thought that the campaign created adequate awareness about appropriate antibiotic use and antibiotic resistance. The voluntary campaign has implications for resource limited settings/low and middle income countries.

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