Dear partners,
During the last two weeks of live interactive radio shows tackling AMR in Kenya, we delved deeper into two critical issues: risk perceptions towards AMR and barriers towards general drugs and antimicrobial practices.
Below you will read a selection of voices on the public’s understanding of risks of drug misuse such as infection and diseases becoming hard to treat, death, and increased cost of money on drugs. You will also read calls for educating the community about AMR and avoiding over the counter drugs and maintaining hygiene to help reduce antibiotics misuse.
In addition, using appropriate social distancing measures, Africa’s Voices continued with listening groups (LGs) with a maximum of 15 participants per group with women, local clinicians, and/ or health professionals in parallel to the radio broadcast in all the target locations. The key highlights from those discussions are also included in this bulletin. Similarly, key informant interviews were conducted with members of the Listening Groups from the local communities (both health providers and mothers from the communities as users of diagnosis and AMR drugs).
Our biweekly bulletin aims to provide rich insights on community awareness on AMR to help communities, researchers, health providers, and decision-makers take collective action. In the next phase, we will pivot towards empowering citizens to change behaviors, fill evidence gaps for the research community, and support health policy decision-making using Citizen Generated Data. In the immediate bulletin, we will share the citizen insights on antibiotics use in animals – and the correlation it has on human health – as well as community knowledge on AMR.
As always, we welcome your feedback, questions and recommendations. You can access the insights by CLICKING HERE.
Warm wishes,
Agnes Gakuru
Programme Manager
agnes@africasvoices.org
@africas_voices
