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Securing access to effective antimicrobials is one of the greatest challenges today. Until now, efforts to address this issue have been isolated and uncoordinated, with little focus on sustainable and international solutions. Global collective action is necessary to improve access to life-saving antimicrobials, conserving them, and ensuring continued innovation. Access, conservation, and innovation are beneficial when achieved independently, but much more effective and sustainable if implemented in concert within and across countries. WHO alone will not be able to drive these actions. It will require a multisector response (including the health, agriculture, and veterinary sectors), global coordination, and financing mechanisms with sufficient mandates, authority, resources, and power. Fortunately, securing access to effective antimicrobials has finally gained a place on the global political agenda, and we call on policy makers to develop, endorse, and finance new global institutional arrangements that can ensure robust implementation and bold collective action.

Universal access to effective antimicrobials is essential to the realization of the right to health. At present, 5.7 million people die from treatable infections each year because they lack this access. Yet, community-based diagnosis and appropriate treatment for many of the leading causes of avoidable infectious deaths has been shown to be feasible and effective, demonstrating that strategies to reach the under-served need to receive high priority. This is a necessary part of a broad strategy to assure the long-term benefits of antimicrobials and to combat antimicrobial resistance, both because the lack of systematic and rigorous efforts to assure effective coverage increases the likelihood of antimicrobial resistance, and because global efforts aimed at antimicrobial stewardship and innovation cannot succeed without explicitly addressing the needs of the under-served. Elements of this strategy will include clear evidence-based treatment protocols, a robust international framework and locally tailored regulations, active engagement with communities and local health providers, strong attention to program management and cost considerations, a focus on the end user, and robust surveillance and response to emerging resistance patterns. Only by balancing the needs of universal access with stewardship and innovation, and assuring that they are mutually reinforcing can a global strategy hope to effectively address antimicrobial resistance.

Since its national debut in 1987, Fresh Air with Terry Gross has been a highly acclaimed and much adored weekday magazine among public radio listeners. Each week, nearly 4.8 million people turn to Peabody Award-winning host Terry Gross for insightful conversations with the leading voices in contemporary arts and issues. The renowned program reaches a global audience, with over 620 public radio stations broadcasting Fresh Air, and 3 million podcast downloads each week. Fresh Air has broken the mold of 'talk show' by weaving together superior journalism and intimate storytelling from modern-day intellectuals, politicians and artists alike. Through probing questions and careful research, Gross's interviews are lauded for revealing a fresh perspective on cultural icons and trends. Her thorough conversations are often complemented by commentary from well-known contributors. Fresh Air is produced at WHYY-FM in Philadelphia and broadcast nationally by NPR., INT. 1: Dr. VJOSA DOBRUNA ('Vee-YO-sa Doe-BRU-na') is one of this year's recipients of the Jonathan Mann Award for Global Health and Human Rights. She's being recognized for her work as founder of the Pristina Center for the Protection of Women and Children, which treats those victimized by rape, torture, or psychological trauma. DOBRUNA is a pediatrician neurologist. During the war, she fled to Macedonia and set up work in a Macedonian refugee camp. DOBRUNA narrowly escaped arrest last year. Her colleague, Dr. Flora Brovina, is the other receipient of the award. But Brovina is in a Serb prison, convicted of terrorism for providing medicine and knitting wool to women who were allegedly aiding members of the Kosovo Liberation Army. (THIS INTERVIEW CONTINUES INTO THE SECOND HALF OF THE SHOW).INT. 2: DR. NILS DAULAIRE is the president of the Global Health Council, one of the three non-governmental organizations that administers the Jonathan Mann Award, named after the late doctor who was a pioneer in the fight against AIDS and connecting global health and human rights.REV. : We remember actress NANCY MARCHAND who died Sunday at the age of 71. Most recently she was best-known for playing the bitter mother of Tony Soprano in the HBO series 'The Sopranos.' During the 1970s she played the newspaper publisher on the 'Lou Grant' show. (interview with TV critic DAVID BIANCULII rebroadcast from 3/18/99)