Narvina Sinani1
1National Agency for Drugs and Medical Devices, Tirana, Albania.
Introduction: Albania has provided data for each of seven years of data collection (2011-2017). The main sources of data are import records provided by the National Agency for Drugs and Medical Devices.The data presented, provide a more detailed understanding of the patterns of antimicrobial consumption in Albania and can help to identify areas for further investigation and allow development of targeted interventions to address potential problems identified in the consumption of antibacterial.
Methods: In order to provide new baseline trend data for AMC estimates, analyses for 2015, 2016 and 2017 have been re-run applying the new DDD values that came into effect in January 2019. Data are presented with both existing and new DDDs to illustrate the impact of the changes.
Results: The relative consumption of cephalosporins and quinolones combined has increased over time at 21.6% in 2011 and 41.6% in 2017. There have been some decreases in consumption of first-generation agents at 28% of total cephalosporin use in 2011 and 12% in 2017.The Watch group agents ciprofloxacin (10.3%), levofloxacin (3.3%), azithromycin (5.8%), clarithromycin (4.4%) and cefixime (4%) together comprise 27.8% of J01 oral agent consumption in 2017.
Conclusions: While the number of J01 antibacterial agents available is large, there is considerable evidence from ESAC-Net and other analyses that consumption tends to be concentrated in a relatively small number.
Keywords: Albania, antibiotic consumption, data collection.