Thank you Chair.
The challenge of combating antimicrobial resistance cannot be addressed by any country, or even a region of the world, alone. International travel and trade today tie the world together in the most profound ways. Norway has therefore, with others, actively encouraged the World Health Organization to bring together the international community to develop a global action plan to combat antimicrobial resistance.
Norway is by and large pleased with the draft Global Action Plan (GAP) as it now reads, and will strongly support its adoption.
We would, however, have preferred even stronger wording, in particular on the importance of the environment and the role of the total ecosystem in the spread antibiotic resistance. Use of antibiotics for humans and animals and in agriculture will also have an impact on the microbe flora outside the infected individual as the active substance leaks into the outer environment through drainage and sewage. Also contamination from pharmaceutical industry and other industry may play an important role.
Norway supports the Global Action Plan’s request to the DG to explore the establishment of partnerships for financing and coordination of the development of new antibiotics is also important. In that respect we welcome that the European Parliament adopted a resolution 2 days ago where they call “on the Member States and the Commission to start a reflection process together with the WHO in order to develop a new economic model that delinks the volume of antibiotics sales from the reward paid for a new antibiotic, ensuring a fair return on investment for the companies while safeguarding the sustainability of national health systems”.
A major task ahead of us will be the implementation of the Global Action Plan. In order to succeed we must commit ourselves to assuring that all people have access to effective, appropriate and affordable antimicrobials in a timely manner.
Furthermore we need to make sure that the use of antimicrobials in our countries is well-regulated and based on medical need and appropriate diagnosis, and that inappropriate, unnecessary and dangerous use of these medicines is actively discouraged. In this respect, we support the need to start exploring options for elaborating a global development and stewardship framework which may be an important step forward towards global collective action.
Finally, it is important that manufacturers and marketers of antimicrobials become increasingly involved as active and constructive partners in furthering appropriate use, and stopping excessive and inappropriate use.
Thank you.