The Commonwealth Partnership for Antimicrobial Stewardship Projects (CwPAMS) has presented its report to the Management of the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, Ituku/Ozalla, Enugu.

The CMD of UNTH, Prof. Obinna Onodugo, was represented at the program by the C-MAC, Dr. Charles Nonyelum.

Speaking on behalf of management, Dr. Nonyelu praised the CwPAMS project in UNTH and expressed management’s commitment to working with the AMS Committee and the UNTH CwPAMS team to sustain the project’s gains and the readiness to collaborate with AMS, and additionally established strategies.

The Chairman of the AMS Committee, Prof. Uche Ozumba; Director of Pharmacy, UNTH, Dr. Chinelo Ozumba; members of the CwPAMS team at UNTH, including the NOHE UK/ALFA fellow Pharm. Genevive Moughalu and other members of AMS were on ground to present the report to management.

 


Speaking after the presentation of the UNTH CwPAMS implementation report, Pharm. Estelle Mbadiwe, on behalf of the visiting team, expressed satisfaction with the UNTH team’s performance, stating that they had successfully completed all of the project’s deliverables to an excellent standard.

The Commonwealth Partnerships for Antimicrobial Stewardship (CwPAMS) 2.0 and 2.5 to projects spanned April 2023 till December 2025. The projects were funded by the UK Department of Health and Social Care’s Fleming Fund, managed by Global Health Partnership (formerly THET), the Commonwealth Pharmacists Association (CPA), and Ducit Blue Solutions serving as the In-Country grants Managers.

The project report focused on the activities of the Committee, which include:
(a) Capacity building for multidisciplinary teams on Antimicrobial resistance/Antimicrobial stewardship (AMR/AMS). Over the lifetime of the projects, we have trained over two thousand five hundred (2,500) health workers across all professions in about twenty health institutions in Enugu and Ebonyi state. We also trained pharmacists on the detection and reporting of substandard and falsified medicines, with particular focus on antimicrobial medicines. Furthermore, the project also carried out weekly training of pharmacy interns on AMR/AMS in our AMS school.

(b) Building and sustaining a hub for quality control of antimicrobial medications in UNTH. To this end, the CwPAMS project supported the UNTH pharmacy quality control laboratory with several pieces of equipment and necessary consumables worth 19,000GBP. This helped greatly to raise the standard of the Pharmacy Quality Control Unit and enable the assessment of over one thousand (1000) samples of antimicrobial medications. For the lifetime of the project, we offered these quality control services pro bono to sister institutions, of which many have benefited.

(c) Community enlightenment on AMR and rational use of Antimicrobials.

To accomplish these,
(i) We held weekly live interactive radio programs dubbed “The Antimicrobial Guardian” on Coal City FM 92.9 till December 2024, and then twice-weekly programs at Urban Radio and Family Love FM, and recently Solid FM. These radio programs were in a mix of Igbo and English and reached more than 1000 people over the period.

(ii) Development and deployment of AMR messaging in Local languages (Igbo and pidgin). We produced fliers and posters in Igbo and pidgin English, which we used in our community engagement programs.

(iii) Community/Market outreach- we visited Abor, Nara, Ugbawka, New Haven Market, and New Kenyatta Market for enlightenment on AMR and rational use of antimicrobials.

(iv) School Engagement/NYSC Orientation Camp—We also took the message to secondary schools in Enugu, as well as the NYSC orientation camp currently in Udi.

(v) Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) Training in vulnerable people’s homes, which we carried out in motherless babies’ homes, Home for the people with neurological deficits, Old peoples homes, Lepers settlement, and the school for the deaf.

 

At the school for the deaf

 

At the NYSC Camp

On Tuesday, 27th January 2026, the project monitoring team comprised Pharm. Lawal Moshood, who represents the Commonwealth Pharmacist Association (CPA), Pharm. Estelle Mbadiwe of the Ducit Blue Solutions, who are serving as the In-country consultants; Dr. Ridwan Yahaya, the National desk officer on AMR, NCDC; and the grants manager, Mrs. Justina Eke, visited UNTH on a sustainability/close-out visit to encourage the team and meet with the UNTH management on ways to continue the good work achieved by the project.

These projects were managed by the multidisciplinary team led by Dr. Chinenye Onodugo of the Department of Pharmacy, UNTH, in collaboration with Milton Keynes University Hospital NHS Trust (2.0) and University Hospitals of Derby and Burton, UK, with administrative oversight by the Director of Pharmacy, Dr. Chinelo Ozumba. Other members of the team include Dr. Ifeyinwa Nwafia, Dr. Fidelis Ewa Uwaoma, Dr. Ngozi Udem, Pharm. Lawrence Ezichi, Pharm. Uju Chukwurah, Pharm. Gideon Nwafor, Mrs. Calista Ibeh, and many others.

We also enjoyed the full support and collaboration of the UNTH Antimicrobial Stewardship (AMS) Committee, led by Prof. Uche Ozumb and members of the AMS team. They include Dr. Kasy Chukwukasi, Dr. Juliet Mmerem, Dr. Paul Nwachukwu, Dr. Kachi Ugwa, and Dr. Izuchukwu Iloabachie.