European Antimicrobial Awareness Day – November 18th 2013

The Bella Moss Foundation demonstrate our commitment to One Health by supporting the European Antibiotics Awareness Day which is an annual campaign held to raise awareness of prudent antibiotic use and the threat of antibiotic resistance in humans and animals. The Bella Moss Foundation ( UK registered charity (1122246) in collaboration with the department of Health and PDSA have produced educational posters for pet owners on hand hygiene and responsible use of antibiotics. Download our posters for pet carers here  The annual Antibiotic Awareness Day  18^th November looks at how vets and doctors  use antibiotics.  It’s not just the vets responsibly prescribing the drug – it also involves pet owners understanding why we might not use an antibiotic to help a sick pet.  There are quite a few factors involved, so we can’t just think about appropriate prescribing.  The irresponsible use of antibiotics can lead to many different problems.  There are the individual ones of harm to a pet, owner or their family and the other is a wider, more global concern.  That’s the development of bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics, which could lead to a widespread epidemic of an infection we can’t control. A Bella Moss Foundation study (2013) found that  84% of  pet owners surveyed knew that antibiotics worked against bacteria, but 7% of pet owners thought that antibiotics worked against viruses, and 7% thought they worked against any infectious agent.  65% relied on information from their vet, with 33% using web information. Continue to help us by filling in our questionnaire online. Take Survey   President of the Bella Moss Foundation.   Jill Moss “We all need to work together to prevent the spread of infections between humans and animals, this is a global problem and this is why next year The Bella Moss Foundation are holding a joint meeting with the Royal Society of Medicine to look at prudent use of antimicrobial resistance in human and animal health (October 13^th 2014) More at this link which will go live in the early part of 2014 www.onehealthbmf.com”. Let’s take action now and work together in the battle of resistant bacteria “