The HEART (Health Education and Antimicrobial Resistance) Project is a project focused on providing general health education and addressing the abuse and misuse of antimicrobials, especially antibiotics in our community, sociocultural practices that promote antimicrobial resistance, and promoting practices that prevent development of antimicrobial resistance.
Moving through the wards of the hospital—the medical, surgical, obstetrics and gynaecology wards, intensive care unit, and other wards—one would duly note the peculiarity of cases where patients, debilitatingly ill due to infection, and every antibiotic available prove ineffective due to any of the reasons above, superbugs or resistant microbes develop in such conditions and increase the burden on caregivers and the whole health community. Many people in the community lack adequate knowledge on general and personal hygiene, and this project seeks to address this knowledge gap and encourage healthy practices for a healthier community and also to address and educate more people about the harmful effect of self-medication, not using drugs as prescribed by physicians, living unhygienically, lack of hand hygiene, and the inappropriate use of antibiotics in animals (which can be transferred to man through contact or feeding on).
GOALS
We will be doing virtual and physical campaigns. • The virtual campaign reach limit cannot be decided at the moment but a lot of people will be reached, with a minimum of 200 people, through the use of appealing infographics and/or videos on different social media platforms including WhatsApp, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
• The physical campaign will take two forms: -The Market Campaign, which will estimate a minimum of 100 reach; • School Campaign, which will reach a minimum of 100 students; and The school and market campaign will also include hand hygiene supplies and the giving of flyers, which will significantly increase the reach above the 200 estimated. It is important to note that the reach of the project could significantly exceed the 400 minimum estimated reach as the numbers are the very minimum possible.