The rampant exhaust of antibiotic drugs is elevating dread across the healthcare sector, as consultants warn of escalating well being hazards linked to overuse and misuse. With antibiotic resistance on the upward thrust, the specter of untreatable infections looms broad, prompting pressing calls for stricter rules and public awareness.
Jihan Ara, feeble 38, learned in 2020 that she had developed resistance to 14 antibiotics following a COVID-19 infection.
Clinical examiners told her that this resistance was which potential of incomplete classes or overdoses of the antibiotics prescribed. Currently, simplest about a antibiotics remain effective in her system.
Within the meantime, six-year-ragged Afrin Naba assuredly suffers from fever and colds. Her mother, Monira Akhtar, reported that they’d consult a doctor for prime fever, who would prescribe medication for long-established colds and fevers. When the fever escalated, the physician urged antibiotics.
Nonetheless, Monira admitted to now not ending the corpulent 7-day direction, stopping after fair three days when the fever subsided. Blind to the need of ending the antibiotic direction regardless of symptoms, her daughter has additionally developed resistance to four antibiotics.
These instances spotlight the pressing bother of antibiotic resistance, which poses a basic threat to public well being and calls for elevated awareness and responsible utilization of drugs.
The sale of antibiotics without a registered physician’s prescription is a punishable offence.
On 18 September 2023, the Medication and Cosmetics Act, 2023 was accepted by Parliament, banning the sale of antibiotic drugs without a prescription from a registered physician.
A refer to to several pharmacies in Dhaka finds that most pharmacists are either ignorant of the recent regulation or simplest about a fastidiously put in pressure it.
Globally, from November 18 to 24, Antibiotic Consciousness Week is noticed, spotlighting the rising bother of antibiotic resistance. Specialists are discussing the causes, prevention, and medicine of antibiotic resistance, along with relevant legislative actions.
What’s antibiotic resistance?
Prof Shamsuzzaman, aged head of the Microbiology Department at Dhaka Clinical Faculty, explains that excessive or defective exhaust of antibiotics can order off micro organism in the human physique to build resistance, a phenomenon is named antibiotic resistance. He warns that indiscriminate antibiotic exhaust inevitably outcomes in this scenario. “The more antibiotics are aged, the more micro organism adapt and become resistant,” he says.
Causes of resistance
Dr Sajjad bin Shahid, present head of the Microbiology Department at Dhaka Clinical Faculty, told UNB that in Bangladesh, antibiotics are frequently given for easy ailments fancy colds or fevers, contributing a great deal to resistance. He likens the unfold of antibiotic resistance to infectious ailments, noting that resistant micro organism would possibly maybe maybe additionally be handed from particular person to particular person, spreading throughout communities.
In many developed countries, antibiotics can now not be offered without a prescription. Nonetheless, here’s now not the case in Bangladesh, where the easy availability of antibiotics exacerbates the whine. Shahid additionally stresses that many participants don’t realise antibiotics are ineffective in opposition to viral infections, equivalent to influenza, which report ninety nine% of respiratory ailments.
He hopes that the recent regulation will curb indiscriminate antibiotic exhaust. Beforehand, pharmacies selling antibiotics without a prescription weren’t penalised, however now mobile courts can put in pressure the regulation and impose fines.
DGDA’s assertion
In conserving with Mohammad Nurul Alam, aged deputy director and moral officer of the DGDA, antibiotic resistance causes the deaths of 5 million folks once a year, as per the World Health Organization (WHO). He mentions that old public well being licensed pointers were inadequate, necessitating the recent regulation to restrict the sale of antibiotics without a registered physician’s prescription. Beneath this regulation, violators can face fines of up to Tk 20,000 and the revocation of their pharmacy licences.
While many pharmacists remain ignorant of those rules, the DGDA assures that initiatives are in spot to elevate awareness.
Prevention and solutions
Professor Shamsuzzaman emphasises the importance of performing antibiotic tradition sensitivity assessments sooner than administering antibiotics. These assessments title which antibiotics will be effective in opposition to explicit micro organism, even if simplest 1% of patients in Bangladesh undergo this discovering out which potential of its cost and time consumption.
Specialists counsel the next measures to fight antibiotic resistance:
• Save clear insurance policies on the correct exhaust of antibiotics, including explicit pointers for prescribing.
• Be stir patients total the corpulent direction of antibiotics as prescribed.
• Start public awareness campaigns on the dangers of misuse.
• Assemble tradition discovering out accessible at hospitals and diagnostic centres across all ranges.
• Enforce licensed pointers stopping unauthorised gross sales of antibiotics strictly.
Penalties for pharmacies allotting antibiotics without a prescription
The Director of the Directorate Standard of Drug Administration, Ashraf Hossain, told UNB that below Fragment 22 of the Medication and Cosmetics Act of 2023, pharmacies learned allotting antibiotics without a prescription will face a beautiful of Tk 22,000. This regulation is legally enforced.
Enforcement actions will be performed through mobile courts, resulting in swift moral proceedings and execution of penalties. Violators chance having their licences revoked, he said.
To forestall such violations, steps will be taken to uncover bigger awareness among pharmacy operators and the final public. Authorities will conduct visits to pharmacies to bother warnings, and measures will be utilized to be certain suggested punishment for anyone allotting drugs without a legit prescription, he added.
