Data Challenge : From Resistance Data to Stewardship Decisions

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is one of the most pressing global health challenges of our time. As bacteria and fungi become increasingly resistant to available treatments, common infections become harder to cure, leading to longer hospital stays, higher healthcare costs, and increased mortality. Antimicrobial stewardship aims to address this problem by promoting the appropriate use of antibiotics and antifungal agents, ensuring that patients receive the right treatment while preserving the effectiveness of these medicines for future generations. Reliable surveillance data are essential for guiding stewardship efforts and understanding how resistance patterns evolve over time. The ATLAS (Antimicrobial Testing Leadership and Surveillance) Program provides a unique opportunity to support stewardship efforts through the analysis of global antimicrobial susceptibility and resistance data collected since 2004. Using standardized laboratory methods and internationally recognized interpretation criteria, the database enables reliable comparisons of resistance patterns across regions and over time. This project will analyze resistance trends focusing on African countries, among clinically important bacterial pathogens, evaluate the effectiveness of key antibiotics (such as tigecycline, linezolid, piperacillin-tazobactam, ceftazidime-avibactam, ceftaroline, and meropenem), and investigate the prevalence of multidrug-resistant organisms and emerging resistance mechanisms. The findings will help identify antibiotics that continue to perform well and those showing reduced effectiveness, providing valuable evidence to support antimicrobial stewardship programs. Healthcare institutions can use these insights to improve treatment guidelines, encourage more targeted prescribing, and reduce unnecessary use of broad-spectrum antimicrobials. In addition, the inclusion of antifungal susceptibility data from the SENTRY platform allows resistance trends in important fungal pathogens to be assessed, further broadening the stewardship impact of the study. Overall, this project will transform global surveillance data into practical recommendations that support responsible antimicrobial use, improve clinical decision-making, and contribute to the worldwide effort to slow the spread of antimicrobial resistance while preserving the effectiveness of existing treatments.