Hyderabad: Prescribing too many antibiotics and empirical treatment of patients by doctors – treatments based on medically-educated guesswork and just experience — are the reasons behind the increasing resistance towards antibiotics of various types of bacteria.
In a study published in March 2016, researchers from Malla Reddy College of Pharmacy and Malla Reddy Institute of Medical Sciences stated that of the 102 patients they had studied over six months, 30 cases were prescribed drugs to which bacteria were resistant.
Among these 30 cases, in 19, doctors had prescribed inappropriate antibiotics.
In an earlier study, researchers from the same institutions had studied 4,000 prescriptions by doctors received at 106 pharmacies in Ranga Reddy district and analysed them using WHO prescription parameters.
They found that the percentage of antibiotics prescribed by doctors per prescription was 30 per cent, whereas the WHO standard is just 20-26.8 per cent. Such irrational use of antibiotics makes bacteria stronger and they evolve to develop resistance.
Researchers said instead of going for empirical treatment, doctors should opt for Culture Sensitivity Tests for detection of disease and prescribe medicines based on the reports.
Another issue which needs to be seriously tackled to prevent increase of resistance, as pointed out by Dr Ahmed Kamal, project director, NIPER, Hyderabad, is of over the counter sales of antibiotics in pharmacies.
He said, “The sale of drugs without prescription in pharmacies, especially of those which have been listed under Schedule H1, should be monitored. As of now bacteria resistant to single drugs are common, multi-drug resistant bacteria are rare and extreme drug resistant bacteria are much rarer. While research is being conducted in many places on the issue, the sale and usage of drugs needs to be monitored so that drug resistance does not keep increasing.”
Schedule H1 drugs have been listed by the Central government specifically for the purpose of reducing rampant antibiotic usage as part of the National Policy for Containment of Antimi-crobial Resistance.
