ESAC-Net - European Surveillance of Antimicrobial Consumption Network

Last updated on 29-6-2023 by Lucy Catteau
Project duration:
November 30, 2011
-
Project with no end date

In short

Inappropriate use of antimicrobial drugs is one of the main drivers of antimicrobial resistance. A surveillance of antimicrobial consumption can help:

  • to detect inappropriate use 
  • to set targets for improvement. 

ESAC-Net is the European network of national surveillance systems of antimicrobial consumption. Using a shared methodology, different European countries (including Belgium) are collecting national antimicrobial consumption data in the community and in hospitals. 
 

Project description

ESAC-Net is the European network of national surveillance systems of antimicrobial consumption, organized by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). Using a shared methodology, different European countries are collecting antimicrobial consumption data in the community and/or hospital sector.

Each year in July, Sciensano:

  1. collects antimicrobial consumption data for Belgium from the National Institute for Health and Disability Insurance
  2. validates the data
  3. transfers the validated data to the ECDC.

The database contains aggregated data, meaning consumption in the whole community sector and in the whole hospital sector without further specification. This consumption is expressed in defined daily doses (DDDs) per 1000 inhabitants per day (DID) or packages per 1000 inhabitants per day (PID), using the country population (Eurostat data) as a denominator for both the community and the hospital sector. The data of ESAC-Net allow to follow-up trends in antimicrobial consumption in the community and in hospitals on a national level over time and to compare these trends with other European countries. 

Besides ESAC-Net, which only contains aggregated data for the whole country population, Belgian hospitals participate in a more detailed surveillance, called BeH-SAC (Belgian Hospitals – Surveillance of Antimicrobial Consumption).

Results

ESAC-Net results are publically available in an interactive database on the website of the ECDC.

Sciensano's project investigator(s):

Partners

Herman Goossens
Samuel Coenen

Financial Source

Associated Health Topics

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