Avoid Excess use of Antibiotics

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Avoid Excess use of Antibiotics

By Dr Arvind Kumar

Recent medical research shows that wrongful or excess use of antibiotics has an adverse effect-causing the kinds of bacteria that these drugs can no longer destroy. The World Health Organization has cited antibiotic resistance as one of the three most serious public health threats of the 21st century. According to US-based the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), just in American hospitals, where between 5 and 10 percent of all patients develop an infection, about 90,000 of these patients die each year as a result of their infection. This toll is up from 13,300 patient deaths in 1992. Some percentage of these people has problems because of antibiotic resistance. Despite serous warnings, the fatality toll and the economic costs keep growing.

According to Dr. Sidney Wolfe, the drug companies keep pushing drugs while investing too little in truly new antibiotics that can overtake resistant bacteria. Too many doctors still prescribe antibiotics for viral infections that should not be treated with antibiotics. They don't work on viruses. These include, says Dr. Wolfe, "colds, flu-in the absence of bacterial complications, most coughs and bronchitis, sore throats (except those resulting from strep throat) and some ear infections. Doctors say that patients demand antibiotics-its part of the culture. But Doctors should be there to inform patients in those instances when antibiotics are inappropriate.

The Health Ministry in India should conduct a probe in the use of antibiotics in the hospitals and take appropriate steps. Besides, we should stop buying soaps, handwipes and cleaning agents whose vendors lure us with the label "antibacterial"

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