Canadian health-tech innovator Firstline, based in Vancouver, has partnered with the World Health Organization to make the inaugural WHO AWaRe Antibiotic Book—a gold-standard, evidence-based guide to antibiotic use—freely available worldwide via Firstline’s web and mobile app. This accessible platform enables healthcare professionals globally to reference up-to-date antibiotic prescribing guidance at the point of care.

The AWaRe framework categorizes antibiotics into Access, Watch, and Reserve groups to foster responsible use. With the threat of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) intensifying, WHO officials say this collaboration dramatically improves global access to critical stewardship tools. Firstline’s core competency lies in packaging complex clinical guidelines into intuitive formats that clinicians can easily apply, especially in resource-limited settings.

Building on this global success, Firstline is also at the heart of a national initiative: in collaboration with the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) and AMMI Canada, the platform will help develop and disseminate Canada’s first official national antimicrobial prescribing guidelines for 25 common syndromes across all clinical settings. Funded partly by the federal government (over $800K), this effort supports comprehensive antimicrobial stewardship within Canada’s Pan-Canadian Action Plan on AMR.