Prime Minister Narendra Modi cautioned against the abuse of antibiotics, but Dr. M. Srinivas, Director at AIIMS, Delhi, advised against using them over-the-counter without first consulting a physician. In his final “Mann Ki Baat” of the year, Prime Minister Modi expressed alarm about the nation’s “extremely worrying” AMR levels and advised citizens not to take antibiotics carelessly. The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) recently released a concerning report that the Prime Minister cited, stating that antibiotics are losing their effectiveness in treating illnesses including pneumonia and urinary tract infections in India.
“We won’t have any medications to treat patients in the intensive care unit if everyone takes antibiotics and develops resistance. “It is extremely detrimental,” stated Dr. V Srinivas, Director of AIIMS. In order to determine which antibiotic to administer, the doctor advised them to see a physician. The medication with the lowest risk will be provided by the doctor, and you should take it for the recommended amount of time. The specialist added that although there are antivirals for viral infections, antibiotics will not treat them. Professor and head of the AIIMS Department of Microbiology Dr. Bimal Kumar Das praised the Prime Minister’s remarks regarding the significance of antibiotics and the grave problem of their abuse and overuse nationwide.
Nowadays, antibiotic resistance is a serious public health issue. Both in medical settings and in the community, bacteria are becoming more resistant to nearly every class of routinely used antibiotics, according to Das. We already have a very small number of effective antibiotics, and very few new antibiotics are being created, which makes this scenario exceedingly concerning. It is now vitally crucial to address this problem and encourage the prudent use of antibiotics.