NADINE NEEMA MITUTSO, Medical Activities Manager of MSF in Masisi, DRC
June 2023
Nadine Neema Mitutso is the Medical Activities Manager of MSF in Masisi, Democratic Republic of Congo, and she is a recent graduate of the Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Learning Initiative. The initiative aims to improve the management of AMR in MSF-supported facilities by providing two learning programmes for Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) supervisors and Antimicrobial Stewardship (AMS) focal points.
“I really enjoyed taking part in this course because it helped me to understand the mechanisms of antimicrobial resistance, which we don’t talk about in my country; it was a new subject.” Nadine, who is the AMS focal point in her hospital, understood thanks to the course that correct prescribing, adequate dosage and timely administration of drugs can reduce antimicrobial resistance, and she was able to raise awareness among her hospital colleagues. “In my day-to-day work, it has helped me a lot to raise awareness among prescribers, so that they can make more rational use of the guides and protocols we have at MSF. But also the nursing colleagues who have to give the medicines in the prescribed doses.”
In my day-to-day work, it’s been a great help in raising awareness among prescribers
Thanks to the support of her mentor, Nadine was able to deal with the difficulties associated with the course, review concepts and ask concrete questions related to the course activities. “If you have any difficulties, or if there’s a unit you don’t quite understand, you can always contact him. Participants are also asked to draw up an action plan, with the help of the mentors, based on the challenges in the field and aimed at implementing actions to better manage AMR in their hospital.
The unit that I really liked was the one at the beginning, which explains the mechanisms of antibiotic resistance, how they evolved until there was resistance to certain antibiotics when we didn’t even know it
“The unit that I really liked was the one at the beginning, which explains the mechanisms of antibiotic resistance, how they evolved until there was resistance to certain antibiotics when we didn’t even know it. It enabled me to know how to act upstream, once you understand that the mechanism can come from the wrong prescription or the wrong dosage.” Nadine graduated from the programme in February 2023, along with 56 other colleagues working in 36 different MSF projects in 17 countries.
The AMR programmes are organised as blended learning, through self-paced e-learning content with the addition of interactive virtual sessions and one-to-one mentoring. They are available in English and French via MSF’s online learning platform, Tembo. The theoretical content has been developed in partnership with the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (BSAC).