Dear colleagues,
Last week, the Council of the Union Européenne des Médicins Spécialistes (UEMS) approved a core training programme for medical microbiology, which was prepared by the UEMS Section of Medical Microbiology and represents a long-awaited document, which is crucial for the harmonization of specialist training in medical/clinical microbiology in Europe. The UEMS Council also approved the implementation of a multidisciplinary joint committee on infection control, whose goal is to define European standards for medical education and training in infection control. Several prominent ESCMID members helped initiate and advance both initiatives.
You may be interested to read an entertaining but serious blog post by Marc Bonten about the potential (and the limitations) of bacteriophages to tackle antimicrobial resistance.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is funding 25 investigators with more than $9 million to pilot innovative solutions and explore knowledge gaps about antibiotic resistance related to the human microbiome, healthcare settings, and surface water and soil. You can find a description of the projects, which are part of the agency’s Antibiotic Resistance Solutions Initiative on the CDC website.