Open Data for Combating Antimicrobial Resistance in Africa

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a global public health threat: it is estimated that by 2050, it will claim lives of 300 million people, surpassing cancer mortality. Rise of “superbugs” - bacteria that are resistant to several antimicrobial agents - means that trivial medical interventions will soon become once again high-risk, since no efficient antimicrobial chemotherapy is available. The African child and woman suffer the most implication aside health systems that are burdened to spend several US dollars in importing first generation antibiotics for better treatments in hospitals and clinics on the continent. In other to overcome the two major challenges namely human error in the bacteria identification process and poor data management, MircroBIS will help healthcare laboratories and research institute effectively and efficiently identify bacteria using AI and manage data on the antimicrobial resistance pattern while making the data openly available to inform policy and further biomedical research for future drug development.