List all reasons for prescribing drugs, govt tells doctors

livemint.com:

Mint had earlier reported on NCDC's (National Centre for Disease Contro) recent report on use of antibiotics which stated that 3rd Gen Cephalosporines was the most commonly prescribed antibiotic, followed by Imidazoles, and Aminoglycosides. Amongst most commonly prescribed antibiotics are Ceftriaxone, Metronidazole and Amikacin followed by Piperacillin and Tazobactam. Health experts have also pointed at easy availability of the antibiotics over the counter is one of the leading cause for rise in drug resistance.

"Usually for common diseases or infections, people no longer visit chemists with prescription and the drugs are given without even basic understanding of the problem. This is a major cause of concern. In coming days, it will become difficult to treat the common diseases.

Large number of people are not qualified doctors and they resolve in giving cocktail of medicines. That is why AMR has become challenging. When a drug becomes a common thing, the bacteria stops reacting, it gets accustomed to the mechanism of the medicine," said Dr Jugal Kishore, Head, Community Medicine, Safdarjung Hospital.

According to the World Health Organization, it is estimated that bacterial AMR was directly responsible for 1.27 million global deaths in 2019 while 4.95 million deaths were associated with drug resistant infections. AMR puts many of the gains of modern medicine at risk. It threatens the effective prevention and treatment of infections caused by resistant microbes, resulting in prolonged illness and greater risk of death.