Washington, D.C., 20 July 2021 (PAHO/WHO) – Enrollment for the second offering of the Pan American Health Organization’s (PAHO) virtual course on the implementation and strengthening of Programs for Optimizing Antimicrobials Use (PROA, in Spanish) will open on 10 August, 2021.
The roughly 70-hour course, offered on the PAHO Virtual Campus of Public Health, will provide the necessary tools for the planning, implementing, and monitoring of activities to optimize antimicrobial use and is designed for leaders, managers, and health professionals whose work is related to antimicrobial use in health facilities. There were more than 900 participants in the first-course offering in 2020.
The second offering will have an additional module on optimizing antimicrobials use in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The other modules address the following issues: the problem of antimicrobial resistance; the importance of programs for optimizing antimicrobials use, their organization, and implementation; strategies to improve antimicrobial use; the essential role of education, interaction, and complementarity with infection control programs; and other key aspects that will enable professionals to take part in these processes to improve the quality of care.
The initiative is part of the “Working Together to Fight Antimicrobial Resistance” project under the “One Health” approach, developed under the leadership of PAHO/WHO in close collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), with funding from the European Union (EU).
