A ministerial conference on antibiotic resistance was held from June 25-26 at the Peace Palace in The Hague. The conference was hosted by the Netherlands’ Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport and the World Health Organization, with 160 participants from 30 countries and international organizations.

Dr Margaret Chan, director-general of the WHO; Dr Bernard Vallat, director-general of the World Organisation for Animal Health; Ren Wang, assistant director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organization; Edith Schippers, minister of health, welfare and sport of the Netherlands; and Sharon Dijksma, minister for agriculture of the Netherlands, attended the conference and gave speeches.

The conference released a statement to support the WHO to make a Global Action Plan on antibiotic resistance and encourage different countries to enhance cross-department coordination to jointly fight the global challenge of antibiotic resistance.

In the conference, Ma Xiaowei, vice-minister of the NHFPC, said that China has paid great attention to the management of clinical application of antibiotics, enacted related laws and regulations, and conducted cross-department inspection campaigns on antibiotics. Currently, Chinese medical institutions and personnel have raised their awareness over the use of antibiotics. The medical institutions’ management for clinical application of antibiotics has gradually improved and medical personnel’s use of medicine has been further standardized, with improved numbers of antibiotics use density and bacterial resistance, Ma said.

China will further improve related systems and put the management of clinical application of antibiotic medicine under standardization, Ma said. He stressed that China would actively participate in drafting and discussing the Global Action Plan and enhance exchange and experience-sharing with other countries.

Officials from the NHFPC’s bureau of medical administration, department of primary health and department of international cooperation also participated in the activities.