Health committee  Thank you. Mr. Chair and honourable members, I am honoured to have the privilege and opportunity to present to you on antimicrobial resistance. I come to you as chair of the antimicrobial stewardship and resistance committee of the Association of Medical Microbiology and Infect

Health committee  Thank you for your question; it's a loaded one. If we look at the basic elements of research, I think it has to start with an understanding of our current state. We don't really have a very good understanding of our current state in terms of antimicrobial resistance or in terms

Health committee  Some of that is a bit outside the scope of my area of expertise. What I can tell you is that many of the antimicrobials that are used for animals are not of medical interest or significance. With regard to those that are, almost certainly a reduction in use of those antimicrobial

Health committee  I'm not sure I'd be too good at predicting 50 years from now. I'm not sure it's even necessary to go 50 years ahead. Several countries right now don't have availability of certain antibiotics due to production problems. Australia recently had a problem with piperacillin–tazobac

Health committee  I can't specifically. I don't recall the particular guidelines that were mentioned in the Auditor General's report. Antimicrobial stewardship as an initiative has involved partnership with several people here along with the Public Health Agency of Canada. There was anticipated f

Health committee  AMMI Canada has had some involvement with it, as I, personally, have. I wear several hats. One of those hats is obviously representing AMMI Canada, but I also represent the Sinai Health System and University Health Network program. In my capacity of wearing all those hats, I've b

Health committee  Thank you for the question. I'm not sure how to put a number on it. I'm not somebody who really wants to scare. It's very important. If we're talking about how much it will affect Canadians' lives in the next five to 10 years, I'm going to say it's going to substantially and alm

Health committee  It requires urgent attention.

Health committee  I'll start. The number one cause of antimicrobial resistance is antimicrobial use. Antimicrobials are the “A” in AMR. One could argue that the only cause of antimicrobial resistance is antimicrobial use. Without trying to be too pedagogical about it, I will just say that as I w

Health committee  I'm not sure we know that. I think there have been several smoking guns over time related to certain strains of drug-resistant bacteria, but there is a lot of overlap. In Canada, for medically significant antimicrobial resistance in humans, almost certainly more than half of th

Health committee  I just want to point out that it's a common misconception that not completing a course of antibiotics leads to drug resistance. That's been thrown around for decades. It's not correct. It may put people at risk of relapse of their infections, but as I pointed out before, the only

Health committee  Sorry, who's that question directed to?

Health committee  As Shelita mentioned, a paper that came out just this week showed that one out of every five patients who receives antibiotics gets adverse effects that are directly related to the antibiotic. Those adverse effects lead to increased lengths of stay in hospitalized patients. For a

Health committee  I chair the AMMI Canada antimicrobial stewardship and resistance committee. Over the past year, that committee has developed and disseminated tools primarily targeting long-term care facilities initially, around unnecessary antibiotics—

Health committee  I'm sorry. I'm misunderstanding the question.