I have been integrating global health into my pharmacy practice research over the course of my career to date. My research focus is to have a true long-term impact to tackle the threat of emerging antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and reduce morbidity and mortality in children particularly in developing countries. My research seeks to incorporate pharmaceutical global health research to improve child health in limited-resource countries.

There is a limited evidence-base on the appropriate use of antibiotics for children globally. In addition, antimicrobial resistance (AMR) disproportionately impacts LMICs which are now experiencing a rapid increasing burden of resistant infections; many of these infections are untreatable with locally available antibiotics. Children comprise a large proportion of healthcare users and young infants are particularly vulnerable to severe infections requiring hospitalization.  With increasing multi-drug resistance in bacteria, vaccines are increasingly utilised as a tool to reduce disease burden and antibiotic consumption.  However, the treatment effects of vaccines in preventing common infectious diseases remain unclear especially in developing countries. It would therefore be important to conduct a project using different quantitative methodologies to evaluate antibiotic use and estimate AMR burden in paediatric population in limited-source countries. 

In 2015, I established and led the first global paediatric surveillance program (Global Antimicrobial Resistance, Prescribing, and Efficacy Among Neonates and Children; GARPEC) to assess antibiotic use in hospitalized neonates and children (http://penta-id.org/antimicrobials/garpec/). Over 100 hospitals from 26 countries participated in this project. In addition to this project, I also worked on another global paediatric antibiotic project- Children’s AntiBiotic Use (CHABU) project. This CHABU project was funded by WHO and DNDi (Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative) (https://www.dndi.org/). The aim of CHABU was to analyse antibiotic use patterns in LMICs and identify the availability, use and cost of paediatric formulations of antibiotics. I have a number of papers published from these projects (Lancet Infectious Diseases, Lancet Global Health, BMJ Global Health). In addition, I have worked with European and Chinese collaborators in several systematic reviews/meta-analysis on paediatric infectious diseases. Several papers have been published in peer-review journals through our collaborations.

My research aims to develop quantitative methods to estimate AMR burden which is an emerging global public health crisis. I will engage with several international research collaborations in the next number of years. I believe that my research outputs will have a strong influence on global organisations (i.e. WHO, United Nations) to develop or revise treatment guidance and implement appropriate interventions to improve child health.