Project description
Smarter antibiotic use for children in Africa
In sub-Saharan Africa, many children admitted to hospital with broad clinical diagnoses, such as severe pneumonia, receive antibiotics unnecessarily, often for too long. In this context, the EU-funded PediSEP1 project will introduce a risk-stratified care model to reduce antibiotic overuse and combat antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Specifically, low-risk children will be identified early, treated briefly, and discharged sooner (with simple phone follow-up), freeing up hospital resources and limiting AMR exposure. The project combines clinical trials, mathematical modelling, and policy engagement to guide smarter treatment decisions. A new tool, PPS-plus, will help track AMR transmission across hospitals, supporting safer, more personalised care and more efficient health systems.
Objective
In suv-Saharan Africa (sSA), most government-run hospitals aim to follow WHO or national syndrome-based guidelines. Clinical syndromes, such as ‘severe pneumonia’ are designed to be sensitive for pathologies like invasive bacterial disease that require specific treatments to prevent death. However, low specificity means that a far wider group of children is captured by a syndrome definition including many with a self-limiting infection and very low risk of death.
Currently, decisions regarding admission, discharge, and escalating or de-escalating antimicrobials are typically made by staff with limited paediatric training, very often interns, and current guidelines have very limited or no advice on de-escalation and discharge. These factors contribute to antimicrobial over-use, overly broad-spectrum prescribing, and unnecessarily prolonged treatment ‘to be on the safe side’. Excessive duration of antibiotic treatment means a greater risk of acquiring AMR from the hospital environment, significant costs to health providers and families, overcrowding, a low nurse:patient ratio, and reduced care for higher risk children.
We propose that major reductions in antibiotic use, exposure to the hospital environment and transmission of AMR can be achieved by risk stratified care enabling very low-risk children admitted to hospital to be cohorted away from longer-stay patients, stop antibiotics and go home earlier with inexpensive phone follow up. We will engage policymakers, undertake mathematical modelling of antimicrobial usage, AMR transmission and costs across sSA within risk strataand conduct a trial of risk stratified care, and develop a tool 'PPS-plus' for monitoring of AMR transmission through simple cross sectional surveys.
Relevance to the work programme includes combatting the major global threat from AMR through identification of personalised treatment options, a better evidence-base for policymaking, and digital tools to optimise clinical workflows.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- medical and health sciences clinical medicine pneumology
- medical and health sciences basic medicine pharmacology and pharmacy pharmaceutical drugs antibiotics
- medical and health sciences basic medicine pathology
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.2.1 - Health
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-JU-RIA - HORIZON JU Research and Innovation Actions
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) HORIZON-JU-GH-EDCTP3-2024-01-two-stage
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
OX1 2JD Oxford
United Kingdom
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.