The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) today (April 7) welcomed the launch of a new “digital campaign” to “keep antibiotics working and tackle the threat of antibiotic resistance (AMR)”.
It will be led by a “comedic mascot character, ‘Andi Biotic’” and will target “young adults” aged 18-34 to “bust” misconceptions about antibiotics, the body said.
The campaign is set to run for six weeks and will see the mascot “embark on a mission to answer people’s uncertainties about how and when to take antibiotics”, it added.
Read more: ‘Limited’ government progress on antimicrobial resistance threat, warns watchdog
“The campaign will launch on UKHSA’s social media channels and at participating GP surgeries and pharmacies throughout April and May,” the body said, adding that it aims to “help preserve” the effectiveness of antibiotics “today and for future generations”.
According to UKHSA, the campaign is currently being piloted to “test the potential to capture people’s attention and imagination through digital channels”.
“Public health threat”
“Andi will come to the rescue in a variety of scenarios to make sure people are taking antibiotics in the right way,” UKHSA said, which could include:
- Not taking antibiotics for colds and flu, which “remains one of the biggest misconceptions about taking antibiotics”
- Only taking antibiotics when you have been prescribed them and “taking them as directed by a healthcare professional”
- “Not saving antibiotics for future use”
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The government body developed ‘Andi Biotic’ to “take the success of the Keep Antibiotics Working campaign from 2018 to a new generation”, stressing that AMR is a “major public health threat.
UKHSA chief executive Professor Dame Jenny Harries said that AMR is “impacting people every day in this country and is one of the biggest threats to our future health”.
“Protect” future generations
“But we can all help tackle the problem,” she said, adding that “everyone, especially young people, [have] the power to help change this by following simple steps to take antibiotics correctly”.
“This isn’t just for our own health - it’s about helping protect everyone in our communities and future generations.”
Minister for public health and prevention, Ashley Dalton, said that “by empowering the public with knowledge about when and how to take antibiotics, together we can help preserve their effectiveness.
Read more: Pharmacy First to be ‘closely monitored’ for antimicrobial resistance risk
It comes after the National Audit Office (NAO) announced in February that the government has made “limited progress” on reducing AMR and the UK remains “a long way from” plans made to “control, contain and mitigate” it.
Despite the government spending around £567 million on AMR programmes between 2020-21 and 2023-24, “there has been no sustained reduction in the amount of AMR-related human infections that the government tracks”, the NAO said at the time.
