World AMR Awareness Week runs from 18 to 24 November 2026. The World Health Organization’s theme this year is “One Health, one action: Prevent AMR now.”
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) happens when bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites stop responding to the medicines designed to kill them. Infections then become harder, slower and more expensive to treat, and sometimes impossible. WHO now describes AMR as “no longer a future challenge” but a global threat.
What “One Health” means: human, animal, plant and environmental health are linked. Antibiotics used in farming, residues released into water, and prescribing in hospitals all feed the same problem, so every sector has to act.
Why it matters to nurses
Nurses give most antimicrobial doses in hospitals, take most samples, and spend the most time with patients. That makes nursing central to antimicrobial stewardship, even where nurses do not prescribe. Bacterial AMR was directly responsible for an estimated 1.27 million deaths worldwide in 2019 and contributed to almost 5 million.
12 ways nurses can help prevent AMR
- Clean your hands at every one of the WHO five moments. Preventing infection prevents antibiotic use.
- Take cultures before the first dose of antibiotics whenever this will not delay urgent treatment, such as in sepsis.
- Give doses on time. Late or missed doses lower drug levels and encourage resistance.
- Question the duration. Ask at handover whether the course has a stop or review date.
- Prompt the IV-to-oral switch when the patient is improving, eating and drinking.
- Record allergies accurately. Many “penicillin allergies” are side effects such as nausea. A wrong label leads to broader, less effective antibiotics.
- Remove lines and catheters as soon as they are no longer needed.
- Use isolation correctly for patients with resistant organisms such as MRSA or carbapenem-resistant bacteria.
- Teach patients to finish the course as prescribed, never to share antibiotics, and that antibiotics do not treat colds or flu.
- Promote vaccination, which prevents infections that would otherwise need treatment.
- Dispose of unused antibiotics safely through pharmacies, not sinks or toilets.
- Join your stewardship team or audit, or champion AMR awareness on your ward this week.
Ideas for your ward this week
- A five-minute teaching session at handover on allergy labels
- A poster on IV-to-oral switch criteria
- A hand hygiene audit with feedback
- Patient leaflets on safe antibiotic use at discharge
The global plan
WHO’s updated Global Action Plan on AMR 2026–2036 sets targets to reduce AMR-associated deaths, cut antimicrobial use in food production and limit environmental pollution from resistant microbes and drug residues.
Related: Gonorrhoea and antibiotic resistance · Amoxicillin: uses and allergy signs
Sources: World Health Organization, World AMR Awareness Week 2026 campaign page and antimicrobial resistance fact sheet; Global Research on Antimicrobial Resistance estimates (Lancet, 2022).
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