World Health Day is commemorated in Sierra Leone with the theme of Combat Drug Resistance: “No action today, No cure tomorrow” on 7 April 2011. The Ministry of Health and Sanitation organized a high level symposium to deliberate on the threat of drug resistance in the country.

In her opening speech, the Minister of Health and Sanitation Hon Zainab Bangura said that the issue of antimicrobial re-sistance is very much a threat to health service delivery and needs urgent action. Highlighting some of the actions her Minis-try is undertaking, the Minister said “as a Minister I am using the day to raise awareness call for an-all-focused action to pre-vent drug resistance in the country”. She concluded her state-ment by calling on all stakeholders to play their role in combat-ing drug resistance and said “let us all do all we can to make sure we secure our medicines for the future”.

Dr Wondimagegnehu Alemu, WHO Representative, said the theme “Combat Drug Resistance –No Action today no cure to-morrow” addresses an emerging threat in health care delivery He concluded his remark by mentioning some of the causes of antimicrobial resistance in Sierra Leone and called for a strong partnership between government and non-state actors in the fight against antimicrobial resistance. During the technical session of the symposium, presentations were, made by National Malaria Control Programme, TB and Leprosy Programe, HIV/AIDS Pro-gramme, Pharmacy Board, Laboratory Services on their roles in combating antimicrobial resistance. This was followed by dis-cussions to understand the situation..

The Symposium participants agreed on way forward to check the spread of antimicrobial resistance includ-ing developing an integrated all-inclusive plan that en-sure participation of private and non-government sec-tors; improving monitoring and surveillance; intensify-ing awareness creation and promoting compliance to treatment regimen.

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