News

The high global use of antibiotics, the rapid spread of multidrug-resistant bacteria and the lack of new, effective antibiotics has led to an imminent threat to health systems and global development. The responsibility of national governments for taking action to contain antibiotic resistance was reinforced in he global action plan on antimicrobial resistance adopted at the May 2015 World Health Assembly.1 A core strategy for controlling resistance is to coordinate efforts through a national action plan. In Sweden, such a plan was first developed in 2000. It built on the work of the Swedish strategic programme against antibiotic resistance, known as Strama, a nationwide structured and continuously evolving collaboration against antibiotic resistance that has been in place since 1995.2 The programme was triggered by a rapid spread of penicillin-resistant pneumococci among children in southern Sweden in the early 1990s.3 It started as a voluntary network of government authorities and professional organizations and with the formation of multiprofessional groups in local administrative areas.4 From the start, the programme applieda One Health approach to antibiotic resistance, working across sectors and multiple disciplines.5 Already in 1986, the use of antibiotics in animal feed for growth promotion was banned in Sweden. Since 2012, an intersectoral coordinating mechanism, presently consisting of 25 agencies and organizations within