Direk Limmathurotsakul – University of Oxford, United Kingdom
Adilia Warris – University of Exeter, United Kingdom
Suwimon Khusuwan – Chiangrai Prachanukroh Hospital, Thailand
Manat Sitthichai – Phrachomklao Hospital, Thailand
Niran Jankong – Chaoprayayommarat Hospital, Thailand
Suwatthiya Kitsaran – Sunpasitthiprasong Hospital, Thailand
Panida Chamawan – Ministry of Public Health, Thailand
Thailand
Innovative platforms
Fungal organisms causing fungemia including Candida albicans, Candida auris, Cryptococcus neoformans, Candida parapsilosis, Candida tropicalis, Nakaseomyces grabrata (C. glabrata), Histoplasma spp., Fusarium spp., Other fungal species
Antifungal resistance (AFR) is an emerging treat challenging effective antifungal treatment and negatively impacting patient outcomes. However, tools for surveillance of AFR are lacking in many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Furthermore, fungi have been excluded from most antimicrobial resistance (AMR) surveillance programmes.
We aim to fill this gap by expanding our novel and well-established AMR surveillance tool, AMASS (AutoMated tool for Antimicrobial resistance Surveillance System), to simultaneously monitor and evaluate the burden of fungemia and AFR in Thailand.
AMASS is an open-access and easy-to-use application enabling hospitals to automatically generate hospital-specific antibiotic-resistant bacterial infection surveillance reports using their own microbiology and hospital admission data files. Over 100 hospitals in Thailand have now implemented this tool under the implementation of the Ministry of Public Health.
We propose to expand AMASS to include an additional module focussing on AFR in fungemia (AMASS-FUNGI). We will then apply AMASS-FUNGI, and report the edidemiology of AFR in fungemia in individual-level data from 2019 to 2022 from four public hospitals. These hospitals include Chiangrai Prachanukroh Hospital (757-bed) in Chiang Rai province, Phrachomklao Hospital (463-bed) in Phetchaburi province, Chaoprayayommarat Hospital (738-bed) in Suphanburi province, and Sunpasitthiprasong Hospital (1,188-bed) in Ubon Ratchathani province, Thailand.
Our expected outcomes are to demonstrate the usefulness of AMASS-FUNGI in the surveillance of AFR and its suitability for LMICs. This tool will be made open-access. This study will provide a pathway to implement AMASS-FUNGI in >100 hospitals in Thailand, and build capacity to routinely and systematically include AFR in AMR programmes.
