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A survey conducted by the Students Forum of the Delhi branch of the Indian Pharmaceutical Association (IPA) estimates that if indiscriminate use of antibiotics is continued, 10 million patients using antibiotics may lose their lives worldwide by 2050. Alarmingly, this increase in the death rate will be higher than the deaths caused by cancer.
The survey study was conducted by the students forum on the direction of the Community Division of the IPA and it included a programme on ‘antibiotic resistance awareness’ among the educated and uneducated people in rural and urban areas. The study reveals that responsible use of antibiotics can reduce the bacterial antibiotic resistance. To cope up with this dreadful situation, appropriate actions are needed on all levels including those of national and international health authorities.
The students conducted the study in the form of a questionnaire based survey. Through this questionnaire they tried to observe the amount of awareness in common people regarding proper use of antibiotics and risk of antibiotics due to their over-use. The questions asked were like frequency of antibiotic taken, source from which antibiotic was obtained, if they ever self-prescribed an antibiotic, completion of antibiotic therapy as per doctor’s advice etc.
“Around the world there are increasing reports of treatment failures where resistant bacterial infections are no longer responding to antibiotics. This is already seen for some common infections like pneumonia and gonorrhea. This means that many procedures that we rely on will be risky. Routine operations like hip replacement, caesarean section and appendix removal will become riskier”, says the report submitted by Wasiuzzaman Khan, president of the student’s forum.
It further says that the antibiotics and the people’s health can be safeguarded by using antibiotics cautiously, ie, only when it is necessary and in the way it is prescribed. People must be given the awareness that those antibiotics which are prescribed for particular illness by medical professionals should only be taken. Along with, the medical advice given by the doctors should be followed carefully. The dose of the medicine and duration of consumption are decided by the doctors and their advice has to be followed. This way we can fight against anti-biotic resistance. If so, these life-saving drugs can be kept available for future generations.
In the awareness classes, the students forum leaders, who are basically students of various courses in pharmacy, educated the people that when disease-causing bacteria are ‘resistant’ they can become difficult or impossible to treat. Bacteria that develop this ‘resistance’ are not killed, but continue to multiply. Resistance in bacteria can pass to other bacteria in the human body. They can also be deposited in the environment (water, soil) or spread to others in the family or community or hospitals.
The students advised the mass community about the need of consultation by a doctor or a pharmacist before taking antibiotics. According to the students, many of the people are taking antibiotics without any prescription, and very often they buy the medicines from the medical shops even without prescriptions. The excess medicines are kept at home for future use or given to some other people for use without consulting a doctor. The students said the poor people are not aware of the side-effects of the antibiotics.
On the direction of Manjiri Gharat, chairman of the Community Pharmacy Division of the IPA, Dr Naresh Sharma, president of Delhi IPA branch guided the survey team.
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