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EU awards health projects to promote better use of antibiotics

Xinhua, February 7, 2017 Adjust font size:

The European Commission on Monday delivered awards to health research projects at the University of Leuven in Belgium as parts of its efforts to promote better use of antibiotics.

According to a statement, the 1 million euros (1.07 million U.S. dollars) Horizon Prize was awarded to a finger prick test that was developed by Minicare HNL, a combined research effort of P&M Venge AB from Sweden and PHILIPS Electronics from the Netherlands.

The test can diagnose in less than ten minutes a bacterial infection and identify if a patient can be treated safely without antibiotics.

The 20,000 euros (21,494 U.S. dollars) EU Health Award for NGOs fighting Antimicrobial Resistance was given to BEUC, the European Consumer Organization, for their campaign "From Farm to You".

The campaign raised awareness about the causes of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), according to the statement.

In the Europe Union, AMR was responsible for 25,000 deaths and over 1.5 billion euros in healthcare costs and productivity losses annually, it said.

Inaction was projected to result in millions of deaths globally per year by 2050 and a cumulative loss of over 90 trillion euros to the world economy, according to the statement. Endit