T&T’s Dr Rajeev Nagassar wins Caribbean AMR Leadership Award

The Pan Amer­i­can Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion and the World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion have named Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Dr Ra­jeev Na­gas­sar as the first re­cip­i­ent of the Caribbean An­timi­cro­bial Re­sis­tance Lead­er­ship Award. The award was cre­at­ed in mem­o­ry of Ja­maican vet­eri­nar­i­an and pub­lic health ad­vo­cate Dr Suzan McLen­non-Miguel.

The an­nounce­ment was made dur­ing an on­line cer­e­mo­ny that brought to­geth­er health lead­ers from across the Caribbean and be­yond. The award recog­nis­es lead­er­ship in an­timi­cro­bial re­sis­tance work and high­lights ef­forts linked to hu­man health, an­i­mal health, agri­cul­ture and re­lat­ed sec­tors.

Chief of the AMR Spe­cial Pro­gram at PA­HO/WHO Dr Pi­lar Ra­mon-Par­do said the range of nom­i­na­tions showed the span of AMR work in the Caribbean. She said the sub­mis­sions demon­strat­ed ad­vo­ca­cy, im­pact based on ev­i­dence and joint ac­tion across sec­tors. She stat­ed that these val­ues align with the work and lega­cy of Dr McLen­non-Miguel.

Chair of the Award Se­lec­tion Com­mit­tee, Con­sul­tant In­ter­nal Med­i­cine and In­fec­tious Dis­eases Dr Corey Forde said the award sig­nalled a step for the Caribbean and the wider glob­al health space. He said the re­gion has shown that it can lead AMR ef­forts, sup­port­ed by Caribbean gov­ern­ments and PA­HO/WHO.

In his re­sponse, Dr Na­gas­sar spoke about the link be­tween peo­ple, an­i­mals, plants and the en­vi­ron­ment. He said the same con­nec­tion ex­ists across sec­tors and the mi­cro­bial world un­der the One Health ap­proach. He said ques­tions about his work in hand hy­giene, an­tibi­ot­ic use and sur­veil­lance point back to this link, and that his aim is to solve prob­lems rather than on­ly con­duct re­search. He said AMR and oth­er pub­lic health is­sues can be ad­dressed through an un­der­stand­ing of these con­nec­tions.

PA­HO/WHO said Dr Na­gas­sar was recog­nised for his lead­er­ship in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s AMR work, in­clud­ing co­or­di­na­tion of the coun­try’s first Na­tion­al Ac­tion Plan and the in­tro­duc­tion of new sur­veil­lance in­di­ca­tors. His in­volve­ment in pol­i­cy, acad­e­mia, re­search and com­mu­ni­ty en­gage­ment spans more than six­teen years and con­tin­ues to in­flu­ence AMR work in the Caribbean.

Dr Na­gas­sar will re­ceive a plaque and take part in a vis­it to PA­HO Head­quar­ters in Wash­ing­ton, D.C., where he will present his work and meet AMR spe­cial­ists.

The Caribbean AMR Lead­er­ship Award was launched dur­ing World An­timi­cro­bial Re­sis­tance Aware­ness Week 2024 and will be giv­en each year to in­di­vid­u­als who con­tribute to AMR pre­ven­tion, pol­i­cy, ed­u­ca­tion or re­search in the re­gion.