“World Antibiotic Awareness Week” was launched by the WHO in 2015 to raise awareness on a global level, to encourage action to halt the emergence and spread of antibiotic resistant bacteria, and to encourage best practices among health workers, the public, food producers, farmers, veterinarians and policy makers.

In November 2016, we commenced the awareness drive at Gwarinpa General Hospital, where we held weeklong activities to commemorate the World Antibiotics Awareness week. Members of staff and the public were educated on proper hand washing techniques, educative information/posters of AMR were displayed in the clinics; the nurses were provided with educational material to use during their routine pre –clinic awareness drive, we showcased the Infection Prevention & Control Committee (IPCC) team and the important role they could have with appropriate leadership support and culminated with a highly successful CME on the global threat of AMR was conducted.

In November 2017, Ducit Blue Solutions supported Nigeria’s first ever One-Health antibiotics awareness week in collaboration with Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), tripartite ministries of health, agriculture and environment, World Health Organization (WHO), Nigeria Filed Epidemiology Training Program (NFELTP), GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Reckitt Benckiser (R&B), Emzor Pharmaceuticals, University of Maryland Baltimore (UMB) and Premium times.

The week was commemorated with the following activities; antibiotic guardian walk, press briefing by the CEO, NCDC with tripartite stakeholders, media chat and school/hospital campaigns for both human and animal health, one Health AMR symposium that saw the launching of our NAP on AMR, Vox pops and social media campaigns with the hash tag #AMRActionNG.