This video supports the written story “Preventing Superbugs: ECHO Works to Keep Antibiotics Effective.”
In Kenya, providers at health care facilities across the country are working together to learn, and share, best practices to make sure antibiotics are prescribed appropriately.
Through the ECHO Model, providers participate in weekly calls to discuss current cases and learn from subject matter experts, as well as their peers.
“ECHO helps with the discussion that you might have limited resources but you still end up managing the patient the correct way,” says Dr. Dennis Odhiambo Omondi, general surgeon at the Thika Level 5 Hospital in Nairobi, Kenya.
Protecting Important Antibiotics
Dr. Caroline Kisia, MPH, MA, Africa director for Project ECHO, underscores how local providers are able to create and successfully implement tailored strategies to protect critical resources.
During one ECHO session, a pharmacist shared how bitter nitrofurantoin tablets (a first line treatment for urinary tract infections) could be made into a syrup, and sweetened, to make it more palatable to a child.
“Through that one intervention, [they] made it possible to see how any other child presenting with a similar case would be saved the hospitalization, and the painful injections,” says Dr. Kisia, adding:
“From an antimicrobial stewardship perspective, [they protected] an important reserve antibiotic—in this case, vancomycin—from being used and the exposure that comes with it, and the risk of developing resistance to such an antibiotic.”
The TEACH AMS initiative was launched in 2023, as a collaboration between Project ECHO and Pfizer. Learn more about this initiative.
Featured Image: Dr. Marion Ong’ayo, clinical pharmacist from Mbagathi County Hospital (Nairobi, Kenya). Credit: Lameck Ododo for Project ECHO, November 2024.