ARPAC consensus recommendations on antimicrobial stewardship and control of resistance

Abstract number: 1133_81

Gould I.M.

ARPAC (Antibiotic Resistance Prevention and Control) is a DG Research Concerted Action funded under the fifth framework. It involved collecting data on antibiotic policies, antibiotic consumption, resistance and infection control policies from over 200 European hospitals. Marked geographic differences were apparent in all but antibiotic policies. There were strong association between both infection control policies and antibiotic consumption versus resistance prevalence and weaker association between resistance and the presence of a hospital antibiotic formulary, drugs and therapeutic committee and educational programmes. The data were presented at a Consensus Conference held in Amsterdam in November 2003 at which expert opinion was synthesised with ARPAC data to draft guidelines for harmonization of policy in these areas at hospital, national and European level. These draft guidelines will be finalised at a meeting at the European Commission in Brussels in February 2005 and will be summarised for presentation at ECCMID. The proceedings of the Consensus Conferences and the draft recommendations are currently available at http://www.abdn.ac.uk/arpac/.