The Annual report 2006 of the European Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance System (EARSS) brings an unpleasant, but important message: antimicrobial resistance threatens the effectiveness of modern medicine and only changes in consumption attitudes may turn the tide. This report is now available at www.rivm.nl/earss.

The report describes the developments between 1999 and 2006 and demonstrates the continuous decline in the effectiveness of antibiotics across Europe. Although this general trend applies to all countries, Scandinavian countries and The Netherlands are less affected and resistance levels are still fairly low. Mediterranean and Eastern European countries witness the fastest deterioration. The antibiotics that lose their effectiveness most rapidly are fluoroquinolones. Also carbapenems, regarded as a last resort treatment for some Gram-negative infections, are threatened by the emergence and spread of new resistance mechanisms such as metallo-betalactamases. The only positive trend changes have occurred in Slovenia and France where MRSA proportions have decreased over the past years due to increased attention paid to infection control in hospitals. In France, a substantial decrease in antimicrobial prescription was achieved through major public campaigning within the last three years.

Based on EARSS results, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) identified antimicrobial resistance as possibly the single biggest threat facing Europe in the area of infectious diseases.

Given the visibility of the EARSS data and the political will expressed by all European Health Ministers to participate in surveillance, it remains surprising that in some of the larger EU member states, laboratories are still not participating in sufficient numbers that would give them a chance to advocate their own cause, namely supporting good diagnostic practice and prudent antimicrobial use through commitment to national and international surveillance.

EARSS is an initiative funded by ECDC, the Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sports and the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM). Routinely generated antimicrobial susceptibility (AST) data are collected from 31 European countries for 7 bacterial pathogens causing invasive infections with clinically and epidemiologically relevant antimicrobial resistance.

For further information, please contact:
National Insititute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM)
Harald Wychgel, Press Officer, +31 30 274 3005, info@rivm.nl

For information on the ECDC see http://www.ecdc.europa.eu/