The United Kingdom (UK), through the Fleming Fund Grant, has contributed £3 million (about K6.4 billion) towards establishing state-of-the-art laboratories, cutting-edge disease surveillance systems and to tackle antimicrobial resistance (AMR).

Speaking in Lilongwe on Monday after announcing the grant, British High Commissioner Fiona Ritchie said antimicrobial resistance is a global threat killing a lot of people in almost every country and it needs concerted efforts to address.

Chiponda receives a symbolic cheque from Ritchie

She said: “The Fleming Fund is designed to tackle antimicrobial resistance. As a result of drug resistance, antibiotics and other antimicrobial medicines become ineffective and infections become difficult or impossible to treat.

It is really a big global challenge.

“We know every country is affected. We believe it is killing over 1.7 million people annually. That’s more than HIV and Aids and malaria.  We absolutely have to work in partnership to tackle this huge problem.”

Receiving the donation, Minister of Health Khumbize Kandodo Chiponda thanked the UK Government for the support, saying Malawi intends to transfer lessons learned in the HIV, Tuberculosis and malaria  management to AMR containment which is a health systems challenge.

The minister said the Malawi AMR Strategy is aligned with the Malawi Growth and Development Strategy III and the country’s long-term development agenda, Malawi 2063.

She said: “We have long concluded that there is no alternative to One Health framework to contain AMR, global health threats and emerging Zoonotic diseases.

“The One Health approach ensures better utilisation of resources and government coordination.”

The Flemming Fund is the world’s single largest official development assistance investment in global AMR surveillance.

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