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Dr Carmem L. PESSOA-SILVA

Dr Carmem L. PESSOA-SILVA

Dr Carmem L. PESSOA-SILVA

Lead, Antimicrobial Resistance, AMR Surveillance, AMR Secretariat, Office of the Director General, World Health Organization

Dr Carmem L. PESSOA-SILVA, MD, PhD, is Brazilian, joined the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2005.


 From January 2005 to November 2011 Dr Pessoa-Silva was the Team Lead for the WHO programme “Infection Prevention and Control in Health Care”.


 In the context of renewed efforts to combat antimicrobial drug resistance, WHO established the Global Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance System (GLASS) and appointed Dr Pessoa-Silva to lead the new programme.


 Prior to WHO, Dr Pessoa-Silva gathered 20 years of professional experience as an infectious diseases physician in Brazil where she is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.


 Major WHO publications coordinated by Dr Pessoa-Silva include:

    • Global antimicrobial resistance surveillance system (GLASS) report - Early implementation 2016-2017 (2018)
    • Worldwide country situation analysis: response to antimicrobial resistance (2015)
    • Global antimicrobial resistance surveillance system manual for early implementation (2015)
    • Antimicrobial resistance: global report on surveillance 2014 (2014)
    • WHO Guidelines: Infection prevention and control of epidemic- and pandemic-prone acute respiratory infections in health care (2014)
    • WHO guidelines “Natural ventilation for infection control in health-care settings” (2009)
    • Core components for infection prevention and control programmes (2008)

She is also the author of several scientific papers, including (selected sample):

    • WHO Global Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance System early implementation 2016-17. Lancet Infect Dis. 2018
    • Infection prevention and control of the Ebola outbreak in Liberia, 2014–2015: key challenges and successes. BMC Medicine, 2016.
    • Moving forward in tackling antimicrobial resistance: WHO actions. Sex Transm Infect, 2013.
    • The WHO policy package to combat antimicrobial resistance. Bull World Health Organ 2011.
    • Reduction of health care associated infection risk in neonates by successful hand hygiene promotion. Pediatrics, 2007.
    • Behavioural considerations for hand hygiene practices: the basic building blocks. J Hosp Infection, 2007.
    • Control of community-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in neonatology. J Hosp Infect, 2006.
    • Epidemiology of endemic extended-Spectrum beta-lactamase producing Klebsiella pneumoniae at an intensive care unit in Rio de Janeiro. Microb Drug Resist, 2006.
    • Extended-spectrum beta-lactamase-producing Klebsiella pneumoniae in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit: Outbreak Description and Risk Factors for Infection and Colonization. J Hosp Infection, 2003.

Session 2: What are we facing?

[2.1] Update on GLASS – descriptive statistics for AMR

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a global threat to sustainable development 1 . The United Nations General assembly political declaration2 reaffirms the Global Action Plan on AMR3 as a blueprint for tackling AMR, and underscores surveillance to strengthen the knowledge and evidence base for policy and action.

WHO launched the Global Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance System (GLASS) to assist decision-making, drive action and provide the evidence base for interventions. GLASS provides a standardised approach to the collection, analysis, and sharing of AMR data by countries, seeks to document the status national AMR surveillance systems and proposes a stepwise approach to achieve quality and representative data on selected human pathogens of public health relevance 4 . The country enrolment started in March 2016. As of 05 September 2018, 68 countries are participating in GLASS. Flexibility has been built into the global system to enable each country to participate in GLASS from the outset, while gradually establishing and strengthening the core components of the national AMR surveillance system to progressively build capacity to share data. This presentation will update on the early implementation of GLASS and summarize latest available AMR surveillance data provided by countries to GLASS.

Session 4: From action plan to actions (1)

[4.1] Capacity building for developing AMR surveillance platform in human

The Global Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance System (GLASS) 1 aims to encourage and facilitate the establishment of national AMR surveillance systems that are capable of monitoring AMR trends and producing reliable and comparable data on a regular basis.

A well-functioning national AMR surveillance system is also vital in planning and implementing the national AMR strategy. The objectives and targets that are defined in the national strategy inform the definition of variables to be monitored and implementation steps of the AMR surveillance programme, enabling countries to generate relevant, usable information in a timely manner. This information will also inform and assist in monitoring the impact of efforts and interventions, be they at the local, national or global level, to contain AMR.

GLASS promotes links between AMR data from the human sector and surveillance data from other sectors. National authorities should keep in mind the importance of conducting AMR surveillance in other sectors, and as such should promote an integrated surveillance approach, making links across multiple sectors wherever appropriate.

The presentation “Developing AMR Surveillance Platform in Human Health” outlines the key steps in planning and establishing a national AMR surveillance system2. It describes the three core components of the system and how each should function and work together. Formulating and implementing a monitoring and evaluation (M&E) strategy for the system is key in ensuring sustainability and development of the national surveillance system.