AMR online campaign – Lebanon (LeMSIC)

Name of the activity: AMR online campaign

Country/NMO: Lebanon (LeMSIC)

Program: Communicable Diseases

Contact information: [email protected]

Type of the activity: Education

Focus area:

Reduce incidence of Antimicrobial Resistance

Problem statement:

Antimicrobial resistance has been declared by the WHO as a serious threat to global public health that requires action across all government sectors and society, altering the effective prevention and treatment of an ever-increasing range of infections. the latter is even more evident In Lebanon where the latest studies, held in 2013, suggested a 50% resistance prevalence regarding invasive isolates resistant to carbapenems and 8.8% increase in resistance to Colistin as well.
Still, abundant research needs to be issued to reflect the true astounding realm of AMR in our country. another sad reality present in the Lebanese community is the lack of a surveillance system for pharmacies and pharmaceutical companies in prescribing Antibiotics as OTC drugs, as well as cattle owners and farmers in overly medicating their animals before being introduced into the manufacturing line.
those are the major contributors to this public health dilemma and they should be tackled extensively for the future. fortunately, the ministry of Public Health did initiate an online campaign on TV channels but it didn’t really reach the younger population and wasn’t considered a trendy topic on social media especially among students. even our own medical students aren’t all familiar with the repercussions of this PH adversity
this explains the purpose of our activity which tackles mainly the consuming public by increasing visibility on the topic and expanding its reach through appealing fun online posts and infographics.

Target groups and beneficiaries:

the target group is pretty large which is the online educated public that speaks or understands English with access to social media so mainly the young population.
this is an online campaign which has a short and long term beneficiaries by sharing it on their media outlets and continuing with it:
-local and national NGOs wanting to tackle this issue
-famous scientific pages
-general interested or motivated people
-foreign appealed people when exposed to the post
-healthcare workers, educators or personnel working in the microbiology field
-international organizations involved in the topic of communicable diseases

Objectives and indicators of success:

1- raise awareness regarding the prevalence of AMR and its consequences to reach more than 6k from the general population especially high school and university students in Lebanon by 2 weeks from the initiation of the campaign.

indicator of success: the posts have been liked enormously and had a reach of more than 15K, some per 1 post

2-educate the reached population about the proper usage of antimicrobial agents through 5 simple advises to be easily followed by reaching more than 30 likes on each post

indicators of success: the 3 most liked and shared posts with high reach contained the advises as well a short caption with further information

3- expose the reached population about the 6 main causes for AMR in Lebanon and internationally through easily accessible infographic that would be liked and shared more than 30 times

indicator of success: the last infographic demonstrating the causes was also liked and shared as you will see when clicking the links for the posts

4-spreading the word and the culture for fighting this Public Health dilemma on a personal, social and governmental level through involving the reached population (more than 100 person in general) in the sharing process by one month

indicator of success: one of the posts was directed towards the magnitude of the problem and had a higher reach as well.

in total the posts were liked by more than 1000 persons from the following countries (lebanon, egypt, morocco, greece, romania, jordan, india, spain…) and shared more than 300 times. we had few interactive comments as well.
we included the hashtag of the competition initiated by IFMSA regarding this topic as well.
we posted on our fb page, insta and all of our whatsapp groups worldwide.

Methodology:

1-information regarding the topic of AMR was collected and certified by the SCOPH miniEB national team
2- the ideas for the posts were also brainstormed with this team and the design was created by a hired designer 2 weeks ahead of the campaign with specific instructions given to him (colors to be used, info to be transmitted, idea to be implemented, logos to be placed, CI regulations…)
3- the schedule for posting the infographics was then set with the publication support division director to choose the prime time for the posts to be placed:
the campaign was held for 3 days with 5 posts divided on this period of time
4- with each post, members of LeMSIC were invited to check out and share the infographic on a wider range using fb, insta, whtsapp, insta
5- friends of the NMO from diverse countries acquainted through previous GAs, EMRs and exchanges were also recruited to share the posts.
6- each post was followed thoroughly by the PSDD and the NO to assess the reach and visibility.
7- the campaign was decided to be part of the IFMSA competition as a celebration of the WHO antibiotic awareness week and shared the hashtags on the posts.
8- the campaign was planned to be enrolled in the CD program

Plans for evaluation:

the monitoring and evaluation were directly implemented through recording the reach on the official page and the amount of likes, shares and comments on each post.
the posts reach will continuously be monitored on a monthly basis
the links of each post are found below:
https://www.facebook.com/LeMSIC/photos/a.213299785444221.47545.210469935727206/1475312432576277/?type=3&theater
https://www.facebook.com/LeMSIC/photos/a.213299785444221.47545.210469935727206/1475947929179394/?type=3&theater
https://www.facebook.com/LeMSIC/photos/a.213299785444221.47545.210469935727206/1477183412389179/?type=3&theater
https://www.facebook.com/LeMSIC/photos/a.213299785444221.47545.210469935727206/1477496679024519/?type=3&theater
https://www.facebook.com/LeMSIC/photos/a.213299785444221.47545.210469935727206/1477648545675999/?type=3&theater

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bbm8SN_F8kP/?taken-by=lemsic.lebanon