WHO Updates List of Medically Important Antibiotics for Use in Human Medicine

The World Health Organization (WHO) last week updated its list of medically important antimicrobials for use in human medicine, adding new categories based on their importance in human medicine, antimicrobial resistance (AMR) risk, and the potential human health implications of non-human use.

The WHO says the updated list, developed in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization, the United Nations Environmental Programme, and the World Organization for Animal Health, was created to guide international, national, and subnational antimicrobial stewardship efforts and is intended to serve as a reference point for national regulators, policymakers in ministries of health and agriculture, physicians, veterinarians, and food-animal producers.

"Because AMR develops and transfers within and among all sectors, minimizing the risk of emergence and transmission of AMR calls for a One Health approach," the WHO wrote. "To improve the responsible and prudent use of antimicrobial agents—and in particular medically important antimicrobial agents—it is thus essential to decrease their inappropriate use across sectors."

New categories

Among the new categories in the updated list is "authorized for use in humans only," which includes drug classes and individual antibiotics that have not been used in food-producing animals and should not be used in food-producing animals in the future. This group includes anti-pseudomonal penicillins; carbapanems; third-, fourth-, and fifth-generation cephalosporins with beta-lactamase inhibitors, sideraphor cephalosporins (cefiderocol), aminoglycosides (plazomicin), and drugs used solely to treat tuberculosis.

The medically important antimicrobials group, which includes drugs used both in humans and food-producing animals, is further divided into "highest priority critically important antimicrobials (HPCIA)," "critically important antimicrobials (CIA)," "highly important antimicrobials," and "important antimicrobials." Antimicrobials in this group were categorized using the WHO Essential Medicines List and AWaRE (Access, Watch, and Reserve) classification system.

Click here to read more umn.edu

Photo Credit: gettyimages-richlegg