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INTERREG-Projects: ‘Pathogens Don’t Recognise Any Borders’

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The End of an Antibiotic Era

Abstract

Cooperation is essential in the fight against antimicrobial resistance. Both within national borders as between different countries. As the healthcare networks, usually a university hospital and the general hospitals and other institutions it is exchanging patients with, are pivotal to the spread of resistant bacteria, these networks are not necessarily limited to one country. Hospitals in border regions are often closely linked to hospitals and healthcare facilities on the other side of the border. These healthcare regions situated in two different countries with two different healthcare systems—but often with very similar people and culture—can function as a proving ground to examine different approaches to the same problem. Different projects in the field of antimicrobial resistance along the Dutch–German and the Dutch–Belgian border can be a model for similar projects within countries or along the borders between other countries. Countries everywhere else in the world could take advantage of the new knowledge and insights these border region projects brought.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The first Euregion was formed in 1958 in Gronau-Enschede.

  2. 2.

    The new name of the institute is the Landeszentrum Gesundheit Nordrhein-Westfalen (LZG.NRW).

  3. 3.

    European Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance System, founded in 1999. At that time it was administered by the RIVM. In the meantime it has been renamed the EARS-Net and incorporated into the ECDC in Stockholm.

  4. 4.

    The ESG has now become the Euro Health Connect (EHC) Foundation.

  5. 5.

    By ‘sluice gate’ Reismann means that, as a patient in the German health system, her friend was first tested in the Dutch hospital as a potential carrier of MRSA, and isolated until the result of the testing was known.

  6. 6.

    As part of the EUREGIO MRSA-net and MRE-network North-west projects, he is working to form regional networks to promote the prevention of MRSA and other multiresistant pathogens. In addition he is coordinating the MedVet-Staph research association, which is shedding light on the zoonotic components of S. aureus/MRSA infections.

  7. 7.

    It was during the summit in Maastricht that the member states of the European Community concluded the Maastricht Treaty. This was concerned with the further development of the European Union and the formation of the European Monetary Union (EMU). The EMU formed the basis for the common currency. The euro was introduced in twelve countries in 2002. Since then it has been introduced in 19 EU member states (EC 1992).

  8. 8.

    European Patient Empowerment for Customised Solutions.

  9. 9.

    An ablation is an intervention for the treatment of cardiac arrhythmia. With cardiac arrhythmia, electrical impulses in the heart occur in the wrong places. During an ablation, the doctor destroys the heart tissue in these places to a certain extent. The resultant scars block transmission of the unwanted electrical signals (Mayo Clinic 2020).

  10. 10.

    See also Chap. 5, A thin layer of faeces on everything you touch.

  11. 11.

    Kempen is the region enclosed by the Dutch towns of Tilburg, Breda, Eindhoven and Weert to the north and east, by Antwerp to the west, and by Genk and Hasselt in Flanders to the south.

  12. 12.

    Dr. Rüdiger Rau was responsible for the area of public health at the Department of Health—formerly District Health Authority—of the Wesel district, particularly the Office of the Municipal Health Conference (KGK). Since 2017, he is working for the public health office (Gesundheitsamt) in Lauterbach, in the federal state of Hessen.

  13. 13.

    Stop Dirty Freddy.

  14. 14.

    This interview with Andreas Voss took place in mid-December 2014, when a large number of healthcare institutions still had their work cut out dealing with the norovirus.

  15. 15.

    See also Chap. 11, ‘A bottomless well, and other solutions’.

  16. 16.

    Twenty German hospitals had one quality-seal, 66 had two seals and 37 had three seals of quality. The four Dutch hospitals all had one seal (EurSafety Health-net 2019a).

  17. 17.

    A total of 180 German and 28 Dutch senior care facilities obtained one quality-seal and 152 German institutions also acquired the second one (EurSafety Health-net 2019b).

  18. 18.

    STI = sexually transmitted infections.

  19. 19.

    Dutch Broadcasting Foundation. The author works for the NOS broadcasting service.

  20. 20.

    The Five Star Movement/League government was in office from 1 June 2018 until 20 August 2019. Prime minister Giuseppe Conte remained as leader of a new coalition government, this time without the League and with participation of the Partido Democratico. Conte had to resign on 26 January 2021 as the small party Italia Viva led by former prime minister Renzi left the governement. Since 13 February 2021 Mario Draghi, former president of the European Central Bank, is the new Italian prime minister.

  21. 21.

    The INTERREG VA Programme is one of 60 EU funding programmes designed to help overcome the issues arising from the existence of borders. These issues range from access and transport to health and social care services, environmental issues and enterprise development (SEUPB 2020).

  22. 22.

    By 2019 the MRSA-rate in blood isolates has decreased in Germany to 6.7%, in the Netherlands it hard increased to 1.6% (ECDC 2020).

  23. 23.

    The School of Public Health is named after Aletta Jacobs, who in 1878 became the first female doctor in the Netherlands. Aletta Jacobs was also an important figure in the feminist movement, which waged a long campaign for the right of women to vote. In 1919, women finally won their voting rights.

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  1. Dutch Broadcasting Foundation (NOS), Hilversum, The Netherlands

    Rinke van den Brink

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  1. Rinke van den Brink
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van den Brink, R. (2021). INTERREG-Projects: ‘Pathogens Don’t Recognise Any Borders’. In: The End of an Antibiotic Era. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70723-1_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70723-1_10

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