Trends in the hospital-sector consumption of the WHO AWaRe Reserve group antibiotics in EU/EEA countries and the United Kingdom, 2010 to 2018

BACKGROUND: In 2019, the World Health Organization published the 21(st) Model list of Essential Medicines and updated the Access, Watch Reserve (AWaRe) antibiotics classification to improve metrics and indicators for antibiotic stewardship activities. Reserve antibiotics are regarded as last-resort treatment options. AIM: We investigated hospital-sector consumption quantities and trends of Reserve group antibiotics in European Union/European Economic Area countries and the United Kingdom (EU/EEA/UK). METHODS: Hospital-sector antimicrobial consumption data for 2010–2018 were obtained from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. Antibacterials’ consumption for systemic use (Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical classification (ATC) group J01) were included in the analysis and expressed as defined daily doses (DDD) per 1,000 inhabitants per day. We defined reserve antibiotics as per AWaRe classification and applied linear regression to analyse trends in consumption of reserve antibiotics throughout the study period. RESULTS: EU/EEA/UK average hospital-sector reserve-antibiotic consumption increased from 0.017 to 0.050 DDD per 1,000 inhabitants per day over the study period (p = 0.002). This significant increase concerned 15 countries. In 2018, four antibiotics (tigecycline, colistin, linezolid and daptomycin) constituted 91% of the consumption. Both absolute and relative (% of total hospital sector) consumption of reserve antibiotics varied considerably (up to 42-fold) between countries (from 0.004 to 0.155 DDD per 1,000 inhabitants per day and from 0.2% to 9.3%, respectively). CONCLUSION: An increasing trend in reserve antibiotic consumption was found in Europe. The substantial variation between countries may reflect the burden of infection with multidrug-resistant bacteria. Our results could guide national actions or optimisation of reserve antibiotic use.