Discuss and Consider Adding Surveillance of Systemic Antimycotics

[Brar]

One of our principal partners has indicated a desire to collect data on antifungal therapy and prophylaxis as part of the NeoIPC Core Surveillance. This would add a process that closely resembles our current approach to collecting data on antibacterial therapy and prophylaxis.

It would be prudent to ascertain whether there is merit in including this additional element, given that the issue of antifungal resistance is currently less prevalent than that of antibiotic resistance.
If we decide to add it further questions arise:

• Should this be added as a completely optional element?
  This would not impose any burden on those who are not interested, but would preclude any external benchmarking.
• Should we make it semi-optional, whereby partners would be required to indicate whether they perform it and, if they do, it would be considered mandatory?
  This could be seen as a compromise, but it may limit the use of external benchmarking, depending on actual interest, and it would also increase the complexity of the methods.
• Should it be made mandatory?
  Our current inclination is that its use is much less frequent than that of antibiotics. Furthermore, we believe that mandatory surveillance is not a significant issue. However, we recognise that our perspective may be flawed, particularly in relation to systemic prophylaxis.