Get Smart About Antibiotics Week Explained

Lauri A. Hicks, DO, captain, US Public Health Service, director, Office of Antibiotic Stewardship, medical director, Get Smart: Know When Antibiotics Work, Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, discusses “Get Smart About Antibiotics Week” and partnerships with international organizations.

Interview Transcript (slightly modified for readability)

“We have this observance every year. It’s called Get Smart About Antibiotics Week, and the goal of this observance is to educate the general public and providers, and to engage all of our partners around improving antibiotic use, both to address the threat of antibiotic resistance, [and] also to improve patient safety.

We work with a number of partners both domestically and internationally. What I think is really exciting is that we’re seeing an international effort to really address this problem. For example, we collaborate with a number of countries in Europe, [as well as] with New Zealand. We’re [also] collaborating with the World Health Organization, [which] has an observance called World Antibiotic Awareness Week, which also coincides with our Week. [The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control] also has an observance that coincides with our Week that’s called European Antibiotic Awareness Day.

More and more, this is a sign that there is global interest [and] global collaboration around this issue. Stay tuned for more information to come out about this week.”