COMMUNITY MICROBIAL INTELLIGENCE

A holistic approach to AMR route cause in the communities by use of a novel microbial intelligence app, e-prescription monitoring policy, use of community health workers, technical support services for antimicrobial users and prescribers, implementation of strong community surveillance systems by use of real time data collecting system and AMR risk calculator.

Kennedy Mayenga- A clinical officer general-clinical medicine, certified pharmacovigilance and supply chain officer, HIV/AIDS and TB specialist, CEO FOR MBC community initiative, founder KUMU society organization and a researcher.

our solution will solve: Antimicrobial Resistance. By addressing, abuse, uncontrolled Access and sale of substandard unregulated antibiotics by drug shops, drug vendors and illegal pharmacy stores in low and middle income communities specified bellow;

1. uncontrolled use of antimicrobials
2. unmonitored and improper disposal and management of waste that contain antimicrobials generated by livestock producers promoting spread of resistomes in the environment with potential spill over to health animals and humans 
3. Lack of access to appropriate antimicrobial therapy
4. weak regulation in the use of antimicrobials in human and animals
5. lack of updated antimicrobial use and treatment guidelines for livestock farmers in communities, primary health care officers 
6. lack of continued education on antimicrobial use among community antimicrobial users
7. Lack of community data collecting tools for surveillance

Problem scale/statistics

According to WHO there is a prevalence of 18.7% of falsified and substandard medicines highest among low-and-middle income countries, 42% of all fake medicines were from Africa between 2013-2017.

According to WHO 684 people suffered from suspect anthrax in Zambia including 4 deaths 

according to WHO each year 4.95 million people die due to associated antimicrobial resistance of which 1.27 million are directly attributed to antibiotic resistance. 

1.Targeted audience: Livestock farmers, Rural communities,drug shop owners and traditional healers/herbalists

2. Health Education and technical support

3. through community survey, focus groups, interviews and background research

4. meetings with traditional leaders, community leaders, community interactive meetings and stakeholder meetings

It will provide knowledge  to antimicrobial users through community sensitization, thereby reducing knowledge gap as a major route cause to AMR

It will create a safe environment for all to have access to quality antibiotics 

The Antimicrobial Resistance risk calculator system feature prevents spread

Mentorship/Technical assistance for livestock farmers on livestock disease management and prevention of AMR 

The surveillance Data will be used to influence policy making decisions, eg national vaccination campaigns against common resistant bacterial infection, vaccines are known to reduce AMR by 50% according to WHO July 2023 data, mandatory use of CMI Antimicrobial monitoring App in pharmacy stores.

The App can be used by anyone

Our Data will be made available to the world for surveillance and research purposes

 Will reduce zoonotic transmission e.g anthrax outbreaks in Zambia recorded in 2023, suspected bacillus anthracis infection 684 people and caused 4 deaths in 2023 

Our solution address directly route causes of AMR at community level.

1.Technical support, health education and community sensitization will address a huge knowledge gap in the communities has led to

• Poor adherence to antibiotic treatment
• Self treatment
• Abuse of antimicrobials 
• Improper disposal of wastes that may contaminate the environment with already resistant microbials strains
• Poor storage of antibiotics in illegal drug shops

2. Data collection by CMI system will help strengthen surveillance system and actual community gaps on causes of AMR will be addressed accordingly by our team of experts 

3. We have multi-disciplinary taskforce, a team of experts that will be deploying our solution holistically

4. Our unique application

The system offers a user-friendly interface to communities, healthcare providers, and individuals through a web-based platform and mobile application. This makes it universally accessible, acceptable by users and the community whom it will be used on

Year 1 (testing prototype)

Surveillance Data collection and solution implementation starting with 1 province targeting 1000 farmers, 200 drug shop owners and 50,000 antimicrobial consumers 

Year 2(Piloting)

Moving to all the 10 provinces in Zambia targeting 9000 livestock farmers, 1800 drug shops and pharmacy shop workers, 1 million consumers 

Year 3 

Expansion to other countries targeting 10, 000 livestock farmers, 2000 drug shop Pharmacist/pharmtechs and drug vendors, over 2million consumers 

Our denominator will be our targeted population, districts, provinces and countries covered.

Will also consider baseline statistics our outbreaks, incidence and prevalence rates of zoonotic diseases, AMR 

Knowledge assessment using baseline knowledge about Antibiotics before sensitization and after sensitization/health education

Measuring our impact

Our office will have performance graphs and charts for all progress indicators and will be having monthly data review and weekly dashboard meetings.

In summary:

We will use our baseline data and initial statistics to measure progress and impact timely 

Financial barrier, we are at foundation build up stage, our project will require money to register our organization and implementation - plan; sourcing for funding from any well wishers and partners

Infrastructure; we don't have any offices to operate from especially administrative work- plan; source funding and security land space 

What we have

Human resource -technical team leads and specialists

Land for infrastructure 

Source of Funds is a major challenge and barrier, we apply to seek for help even anything that can allow us deploy our data collecting tools in the community.

• Center for Disease Control 
• The World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH)
• World Health Organisation
• Medicine regulation board- policy and quality antibiotic regulations