Superbugs and the reckless use of antibiotics, under debate among European university students
Superbugs forthem, a European project led by the University of Valencia (UV) with the aim of raising awareness about the threat of superbugs, at different educational levels and developed by university students, has been closed at the University of Opole (Poland). The proposal, coordinated by Belén Fouz and Sergi Maicas, professors at the UV Department of Microbiology and Ecology, is carried out in cooperation with the Università degli Studi di Palermo (Italy), Uniwersytet Opolsky (Poland) and Johannes-Gutenberg-University of Mainz (Germany).
30 de may de 2023
Within the framework of the project, a hundred European university students have been trained who, subsequently, have implemented different activities in more than 30 secondary schools in the four countries involved.
“The imprudent use of antibiotics is a public health problem due to the appearance of resistant bacterial strains in almost all human pathogens, which makes it difficult to treat numerous infectious diseases”, highlighted Belén Fouz and Sergi Maicas.
In this sense, they emphasise that the search for solutions requires the development of new antimicrobials, as well as innovative strategies, including a greater social awareness of the problem. The current antibiotic crisis requires awareness and, for this, spreading the problem to new generations of students, friends and family, and, in general, to European and world society.
For this, didactic relationships have been established between the crisis around the imprudent use of antibiotics, resistance to antimicrobials and the rise of superbugs, using an exhibition of infographics as the main tool. University students monitor the action in secondary schools, using complementary game-based tools in the classroom to engage students and improve learning. In addition, all activities are evaluated through anonymous surveys.
Superbugs forthem is co-funded by the Erasmus+ Program of the European Union and, by the University of Valencia, by the Permanent Training and Educational Innovation Service, the Languages and Language Policy Service, the Equality Unit and the Information and Dynamisation.
Superbugs project link: https://www.uv.es/superbugs/