After a two year break due to Covid-19 restrictions the NIHR Health Protection Research Unit in HCAIs and AMR held pop up stands to raise awareness

To mark World Antimicrobial Awareness Week that ran from 18-24 November this year, the HPRU in HCAIs and AMR returned to hosting the Antibiotic Amnesty pop up stands at the Hammersmith hospital and South Kensington campuses.

The Amnesty stands raised awareness about the global issue of AMR, often referred to as the silent pandemic, inviting staff and students to pledge to become Antibiotic Guardians and hand in unwanted antibiotics. Over the five-day awareness raising campaign HPRU researchers signed up 201 staff and students to become Antibiotic Guardian and enter a prize draw to win £100 Amazon vouchers. The Amnesty stand also collected antibiotics for safe disposal.

HPRU staff, students and collaborators came together to record a multi-lingual video to promote World Antimicrobial Awareness Week. The video was launched during WAAW and can be seen here: https://youtu.be/RwR7Y9YXJIA.It was viewed 2300 times! The initiative behind the video was part of a larger drive to engage other universities and other stakeholders to produce their own multilingual video using the Unit’s template tools- videos were made by Oxford Modernising Medical Microbiology, Manchester and Brighton Medical schools and UCL.

Following the success of its #GoBlueforAMR social media campaign last year which saw Imperial's Queen's Tower illuminated in blue, the Unit ran a competition for the best social media content to highlight AMR. Entries included a blue WAAW themed manicure and our researchers went blue with the Respiratory and Modelling HPRUs at a peer-to-peer collaborative meeting during WAAW. This year's winning content was from HPRU's very own research lead Dr Nina Zhu. You can view the video here.

Ahead of World Antimicrobial Awareness Week the Unit held an online webinar ‘Preventing and Managing Antimicrobial Resistance: Why Everyone has a Role’ to re-launch our Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on Futurelearn Tackling Antimicrobial Resistance: A Social Science Approach in collaboration with BSAC and the University of Oxford. The webinar ‘Preventing and Managing Antimicrobial Resistance: Why Everyone has a Role’ focused on diverse roles in AMR, and new voices from different professions and sectors. The webinar attracted just under 100 delegates from a global audience who shared interesting perspectives and experiences of tackling AMR in the discussion with our panelists. The MOOC re-launch has been a success with almost 200 learners signed up in the first few weeks from all corners of the world. Register here for the course.