New educational portal will improve control of antibiotics in Colombia

-Apex is a service created by Pfizer and the Colombian Association of the infectious diseases to prevent deaths caused by resistance to the drugs.

-The launch of the initiative, from 26 to 30 September, will feature the presence of international experts in resistance microbial.

-more than 700 Colombian specialists will receive training on the administration of drugs in Barranquilla, Pereira, Medellín and Bogotá.

-at least half of the prescription of antibiotics in Colombia could be wrong.

Bogotá, September of 2011. The Apex web platform, to be launched in Colombia from 26 to 30 September, will manage the use of antibiotics in hospital institutions in the country and combat the growing bacterial resistance to these drugs.

For the presentation of the site on the Internet, international experts will visit the country and trained more than 700 Colombian experts about the proper administration of drugs.

The Conference will be held in Barranquilla, Pereira, Medellín and Bogotá.

Directed infectólogos, internists, ICU physicians and heads of committees of infections, the portal is a joint effort between Pfizer and the Colombian Association of infectology (ACIN) and will be divided into two parts: educational and registration.

The first will provide information on the types of available antibiotics, concentrations and presentations recommended for each disease, and the correct way of prescribing them. The second will be comprised of a data bank, where each health centre will take control of the drugs used, doses prescribed presentations and patients receiving treatment.

The pulmonologist for intensivist Abraham Ali, Apex will be a very useful tool for hospitals , because it will help to reduce the resistance to antibiotics, a phenomenon that produces the microbes do not yield to traditionally effective treatments to combat them.

Ali explains that resistance to antibiotics is produced by poor or excessive formulation of these medicines. This could be, he says the intensivist, lack of knowledge about how it should be used.

According to the World Health Organization (who), the situation causes it to be more difficult to control infections and puts patients at risk of dying by previously treatable diseases. For example, according to figures from the Agency, each year appear 440,000 new cases of MDR-TB that cause at least 150,000 deaths.

In Colombia, while there is not a national registry of resistant microorganisms, in a study published in 2008 by the Bogotá District secretariat of health, it is revealed that between 25% and 40% of all hospitalized patients receiving antibiotics, of which 50% of prescriptions can be wrong ”.

For Ali the situation is of concern worldwide because it has caused that we do not have how to deal with some bacteria ”. It ensures that occasionally arise germs for which there is no treatment options; so doctors must rely on very old antibiotics, which were no longer used because they were unsafe or produced many side effects.

A service such as Apex, which will guide the specialists on the use of drugs and promote diversification of antibiotics, will help to reduce resistance and save thousands of lives each year. Although initially only be available in Colombia, its creators aim to bring this educational program to other countries in the Andean region.

Dates of launch conferences:

· Barranquilla. Monday, September 26 at the Dann Carlton hotel. For 100 physicians

· Pereira. Tuesday, September 27, hotel Pereira. For 100 physicians

· Medellín. Wednesday, September 28, hotel Intercontinental. For 200 physicians

· Bogotá. Thursday, September 29, 60 doctors Marriot hotel

· Bogotá. Friday, September 30, San Juan de Dios Hospital. 250 medical