Hailed as one of the greatest achievements of modern medicine for their ability to cure life-threatening diseases, antibiotics are fast losing their efficacy due to constant misuse. The indiscriminate use of these medicines has led to the emergence of deadly bacterial strains which do not respond to even the most powerful antibiotics. To draw attention to this growing problem, the Emerging Antimicrobial Resistance Society (EARS), a non-profit organisation based near Chandigarh, will launch a week-long nationwide campaign from November 16 to 23 for the first time in India.
Termed as the “Awareness Week on Antibiotic Knowledge and Education” (AWAKE), this campaign seeks to avert one of the world’s “gravest public health threats” by promoting the rational use of antibiotics among doctors, clinicians, pharmacists and the general public through a series of activities.
The awareness walk in Bangalore will be held on November 22. Syncorp, a contract research organisation (CRO) institute and leading clinical research training and service provider, and KIMS Hospital will be associated with the campaign in Bangalore. Dr Huliraj, head of the pulmonology department of KIMS Hospital, will flag off the awareness walk from KIMS Hospital. The walk will be conducted up to Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute and back, a distance of 2 km. About 150 people, including doctors and students of KIMS Hospital and Syncorp students, are expected to participate in it.
An awareness campaign through posters will be conducted simultaneously in all the cities on November 17 and 20.
Announcing the launch of the campaign, EARS Chairperson, Dr Manu Chaudhary said the campaign would be conducted simultaneously in six cities, including Bangalore, Mumbai, Chandigarh, New Delhi, Chennai and Hyderabad. EARS will organise awareness walks in all these cities to urge people to use antibiotics intelligently, educate them about ways to control antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and drive home the importance of hygiene and sanitation in containing this threat.
EARS will also generate awareness about the right use of antibiotics by sending across bulk SMSes to people and holding one-on-one meetings with chemists in an effort to persuade them not to sell antibiotics without doctor’s prescription. Additionally, a webinar on the antibiotic stewardship programme will be organised for doctors in New Delhi on November 18. About 3,000 doctors from all over the country are expected to participate in the webinar, which will be moderated by Dr Chand Wattal, head, microbiology department, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, New Delhi.
Throughout the week, various seminars and conferences will be organised for paramedical/nursing staff and doctors in medical and pharmacy colleges across India to educate them about AMR and its implications in the absence of adequate preventive measures.
“Under the effect of antibiotics, the weak germs die, leaving only the strong ones to proliferate. The more we misuse antibiotics, the more these drug-resistant bacteria will spread. The problem is getting worse with the emergence of new bacterial strains resistant to several antibiotics at the same time. We are on the brink of the pre-antibiotic era, where untreatable bacterial diseases could result in death,” warned Dr Chaudhary.
Elaborating on the magnitude of the problem, EARS vice-president-cum-general secretary Dr Pankaj Mandale said, “More worrisome is the fact that hospitals, the last resort of critically ill patients, are themselves turning into hotbeds of infection. Bacteria in hospital settings are deadlier and much more resistant because of frequent use of antibiotics. India is in a particularly tight spot due to poor hospital hygiene practices, absence of infection control protocols and lack of awareness among the nursing staff and patients.”
Dr Chaudhary said, “EARS seeks to become a rallying point in the long-drawn-out struggle against emerging AMR by adopting a multipronged approach focused on research and innovation, rationalising antibiotic use, facilitating surveillance programmes and raising awareness.” “We are maintaining a comprehensive surveillance and information system to link a network of hospitals across the country by collecting, comparing and analysing data on AMR. We have established a vast network of healthcare institutions and research centres across India for the surveillance of AMR. For this purpose, we have developed a software called Electronic Bio-gram Information Network (E-BIN) across 15 states and set up 150 centres for data collection and analysis. We have mapped emerging AMR patterns for more than 10 antibiotics/ combinations for close to 15,000 bacterial strains,” she said.
EH News Bureau