A global study shows antibiotic use in India has doubled in the past 15 years; experts say self-medication, OTC sale are causing antibiotic resistance among people.
New Delhi: The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) has constituted a ‘patient safety cell’ to keep a check on the use of antibiotics for patients treated at the tertiary care hospital with studies showing that antibiotic consumption in India has doubled in the past 15 years.
Medical experts have expressed concerns that many patients have become antibiotic resistant due to prolong use of antibiotics.
“There is an issue of antibiotic misuse across hospitals. Sometimes, a patient doesn’t need antibiotic. It may even continue for two weeks when it was required only for seven days,” AIIMS director Dr Randeep Guleria told ThePrint.
“To prevent this, it is important that we monitor the usage of prescribed medicine closely. Our newly introduced patient safety cell will have members from microbiology and medicine departments to keep a check on this,” he added.
According to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) of the US, one of the most-cited international scientific journals, India saw the highest increase — 103 per cent — in antibiotic consumption followed by China and Pakistan between 2000 and 2015, reflecting on increasing access to antibiotics in both the public and private sectors.
Guleria said that “self-medication” is rampant in India, which is also contributing to the problem of antibiotic resistance among people.
“Over-the-counter medicines, self-medication and people avoiding to consult a doctor by taking chemist-prescribed medicine and sometimes injections are some of the main issues of concern pertaining to usage of antibiotics in the country,” Guleria said.
The study points out that hospitals could play a vital role in preventing the antibiotic resistance by maintaining permitted stock and promoting the appropriate usage of antibiotics.
“There is also an issue of no audits of prescriptions and hospitals not having an antibiotic stewardship programme,” he pointed out.
“Hospitals have to find strategies to tackle the problem,” Guleria said.
The AIIMS director also warned about the use/misuse of antibiotics in areas such as poultry and agriculture. He said the bacterium which develops resistance to antibiotics in such conditions may enter a human body, making the person antibiotic resistant.
The patient safety cell will act as a regulatory body to prevent the issue of “wrong treatment” at AIIMS, which has a high footfall of patients round the clock, he said.
“As the patient load has increased, we also need to ensure that there is no complaint of wrong treatment. This can happen in medicine, surgery and ICUs,” Guleria said.
“We need to put in place a standard operations procedure and protocols to look at these things. We should have a quality and assurance assessment as well,” he added.