Evaluation of Antibiotic Prescribing Pattern Using WHO Access, Watch and Reserve Classification in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo

Background: The AWaRe tool was set up by the World Health Organization (WHO) to promote the rational use of antimicrobials. Indeed, this tool classifies antibiotics into four groups: access, watch, reserve and not-recommended antibiotics. In The Democratic Republic of Congo, data on antibiotic dispensing (prescribing) by health professionals according to the AWaRe classification are scarce. In this research work, we aimed to explore antibiotic dispensing pattern from health professionals according to the WHO AWaRe classification to strengthen the national antimicrobial resistance plan. Methods: For this purpose, a survey was conducted from July to December 2022 in the district of Tshangu in Kinshasa. From randomly selected drugstores, drug-sellers were interviewed and randomly selected customers attending those drugstores were included in the study for medical prescriptions collection. The prescribed antibiotics were classified into the access, watch, reserve and not-recommended antibiotics group and by antibiotics number by prescription among pharmacies surveyed. Results: 400 medical prescriptions were collected from 80 drugstores and among which, 301 (75.25%) contained antibiotics. Out of 301 prescriptions, we noticed 164 (54.5%) containing one antibiotic, 117 (38.9%) containing two antibiotics, 15 (5%) containing three antibiotics and 5 (1.6%) containing four antibiotics. A total of 463 antibiotics were prescribed and distributed as 169 (36.5%) were from the access group, 200 (43.2%) from the watch group and 94 (20.3%) from not-recommended antibiotics group, respectively. This can explain the fact of emerging bacterial strains, as, according to the WHO recommendations, the access group should be prioritized because of its activity against a wide range of commonly encountered pathogens and its showing low resistance susceptibility compared to antibiotics from other groups. Based on the anatomical, therapeutic and chemical (ATC) classifications, we observed that third generation cephalosporins represented 34.33% of the prescribed antibiotics, followed by penicillins (17.17%), macrolides (7.63%), aminoglycosides (7.36%) and Imidazole (7.36%), thus accounting approximately for 74% of the classes of antibiotics prescribed. Additionally, among them, the most frequently prescribed antibiotics were Ceftriaxone (21.38%), Amoxicillin (11.01%), Gentamycin (5.61%), Amoxicillin-clavulanic acid (5.61%), Azithromycin (4.97%) and Metronidazole (4.75%), thus accounting for approximately 54% of all the prescribed antibiotics. Conclusion: These results highlight the importance of strict implementation of the national plan to combat antimicrobial resistance and the need to train health workers in the correct application of the WHO AWaRe classification.