The World Antimicrobial Awareness Week (WAAW) 2020, 18 – 24 november promotes awareness in use of antibiotics and on global antimicrobial resistance.
The WAAW, promoted by the WHO, aims to increase awareness of global antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and to encourage best practices among the general public, health workers and policy-makers to avoid the further emergence and spread of AMR.
AMR and the prudent use of antibiotics are two topics on which the International Poultry Council (IPC) has always invested a lot of energy and effort to be proactive and to create awareness throughout the whole poultry supply chain.The poultry sector has always been at the forefront in promoting a correct and responsible use of antibiotics, which remain an essential tool for guaranteeing animal health and welfare, but whose use must be prudent and rational.For this reason, IPC in 2017 adopted the IPC Position Statement on Antimicrobial Use and Antimicrobial Stewardship Principles and in 2019 the IPC Best Practice Guidance to reduce the need for antibiotics in poultry production, the last one with the support of the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE). IPC considers important on this occasion to reaffirm its support to the WAAW and to re-propose these two documents our sector is so proud of.
WAAW owes its origins to European Antibiotic Awareness Day, a European Union initiative that started in 2008, and which WHO/Europe joined in 2012, and extended to non-European Union countries. World Antibiotic Awareness Week began in 2015 and became World Antimicrobial Awareness Week in 2020.
