REVERSE Project Takes Important Steps Towards Global AMR Solutions with Pilot Visit to Guyana.

The REVERSE Project, a Horizon Europe 5-year project focused on prevention and management tools for combatting antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in high-prevalence settings, recently completed a pivotal country visit to Guyana, marking a significant stride in its mission to extrapolate effective intervention strategies beyond the European context. This visit is a core component of the project's objective to explore the transferability of the proposed intervention programmes outside Europe and to better understand the contextual factors influencing the uptake of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) prevention and clinical management strategies in diverse global settings.

The REVERSE team, including ISGlobal's Friederike Roeder (predoctoral researcher at ISGlobal) and Elisa Sicuri (lead researcher task 6.6) travelled to Georgetown, Guyana, for an intensive week of engagement from 21 to 30 July 2025. The agenda included crucial meetings with the core collaborators. 

Understanding Local Realities Through a Discrete Choice Experiment 

A central focus of the visit was the initiation of pilot training for a Discrete Choice Experiment (DCE). This survey method, commonly used in health policy research, is designed to identify the relative importance of various barriers and facilitators to the successful adoption of AMR interventions. 

In Guyana, the DCE will target at least 70 healthcare professionals specialised in different areas of care, mainly within the capital Georgetown, located in Region 4.

"Our objective is not to simply transfer European models, but to understand what truly drives or hinders the implementation of effective AMR strategies in contexts like Guyana" explained Friederike and Elisa.

"The insights gathered from this DCE are invaluable. They will allow us to tailor our recommendations and implementation tools to the specific needs and challenges faced by healthcare systems here, and contribute to the global fight against AMR"

Guyana is a South American country now classified as high-income and experiencing one of the largest growths worldwide, also given to recent oil discoveries. Its healthcare system is largely government-funded and provides coverage for most of the population, though challenges remains in tackling a wide range of infectious diseases and ensuring access in remote areas. However, important progress is being made: the government are implementing a national AMR action plan, while steadily increasing capacity for research, laboratory infrastructures, and overall healthcare.  

Forging Collaborations and Informing Policy

During their time in Guyana, the REVERSE team sought to establish and strengthen vital connections. Central to this effort were several meetings with the two core collaborators, Drs. Shazeema Shaw and Taudgirdas Persaud from the Georgetown Public Health Corporation (GPHC). Responsible for AMR-related infections, they provided critical contextual insights, shedding light on daily practises, as well as patient behaviour. Further, the Ministry of Health's Director of Vector Control, Dr. Reza Niles, CARPHA Director of Surveillance Dr Horace Fox, provided a platform to discuss national priorities and explore how the REVERSE project's findings could directly inform local policy and patient care.

"From my perspective, research on AMR is crucial also for vector-borne disease programmes, particularly in Guyana, where we manage a wide range of these diseases. Many of them require antibiotics, either to treat a secondary bacterial infection or as part of regimens for diseases like Lymphatic Filariasis. Therefore, understanding resistance patterns will help us safeguard the effectiveness of these treatments and ensure that our elimination efforts for vector-borne diseases remains realistic and achievable." 

Towards a Global Impact on AMR

The REVERSE project's overarching goal is to develop recommendations and implementation strategies for AMR prevention and clinical management that are effective in high AMR prevalence settings in Europe, and critically, to ensure their transferability to selected countries outside Europe. The findings from this pilot in Guyana, alongside a similar DCE planned for Mozambique, will be instrumental in achieving this objective. 

"We believe that knowledge on what works with reasonable investment - in terms of human, financial, and social capital - can be used and applied by stakeholders and hospitals around the globe" Elisa added. "This visit to Guyana is part of our commitment to a truly global fight against AMR, ensuring that everyone, regardless of their location or resource level, has equitable access to effective treatment."

The insights from the Guyana and Mozambique DCEs will be used to extrapolate study results and recommendations to other high-prevalence settings, and will complement the findings of WP5 ( Implementation).

Therefore, REVERSE will be able to conclude on the applicability of prevention strategies outside Europe.