Collaboration
In collaboration with the Doherty Institute at the University of Melbourne, which is a WHO Collaborating Centre for Antimicrobial Resistance, the WHO Western Pacific Regional Office (WPRO) developed and published the regional guidance document Responding to outbreaks of antimicrobial-resistant pathogens in health-care facilities: guidance for the Western Pacific Region.
This guidance is now being rolled out through a series of train-the-trainer capacity-building workshops across the region.
In their capacity as a WHO Collaborating Centre for AMR surveillance and research, the Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Research Center at the National Institute for Infectious Diseases, Japan, has provided instrumental technical support in convening these workshops..
With the support from these institutions from both Japan and Australia, WPRO has supported workshops in nine countries and territories in the region.
Contributions
The collaboration produced several concrete deliverables that directly strengthened WHO’s programmes. It led to the publication of a regional guidance document for AMR outbreak response in health‑care facilities and the implementation of train‑the‑trainer workshops across nine countries.
It also supported the development or updating of national AMR outbreak response guidelines in Cambodia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic and Malaysia, all of which drew on the WPRO guidance.
This collaboration translated normative guidance into country-owned policy and operational frameworks and helped institutionalize ongoing capacity‑building efforts in Malaysia, the Philippines and Viet Nam.
These results enhanced WHO’s work by enabling the development of practical hospital‑level guidance, accelerating the operationalization of regional recommendations at national and facility levels, and improving outbreak preparedness within broader health security and infection, prevention and control programmes.
Overall, the collaborating centres significantly strengthened the technical robustness, operational feasibility and regional scalability of the work, enabling outcomes that WHO would have struggled to implement without their support.
Knowledge transfer
The initiative generated significant knowledge transfer for both WHO and the collaborating centres, while also producing tangible improvements for countries and health‑care facilities.
For WHO, engagement with leading collaborating centres deepened the technical foundations of its AMR outbreak preparedness work, accelerated scale‑up across multiple Member States, and reinforced its convening and normative role in shaping regional approaches to AMR response. 
For both centres, the effort created opportunities to apply their technical expertise in diverse country settings, strengthen regional visibility and relationships, contribute directly to the development of WHO guidance and national policies, and further consolidate their standing as global leaders in AMR outbreak response.
The broader impact was evident at country and facility levels, with countries developing or updating national AMR outbreak response guidelines aligned with WHO recommendations. Hospitals in nine countries now have trained focal points capable of responding more rapidly to drug‑resistant pathogen outbreaks. This result demonstrates how effectively collaborating centres can accelerate regional roll‑out and strengthen implementation.
The country-level institutionalization of training has laid the foundation for long‑term sustainability and continued capacity strengthening.
Potential next steps include extending the work to additional Member States, with the possibility of engaging countries beyond the region, and exploring ways to integrate AMR outbreak response more closely with antimicrobial stewardship and diagnostic stewardship initiatives. These directions would allow the coordinated model to evolve further and deepen its contribution to regional and global AMR preparedness.