Excessive use of antibiotics is leading to the development of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) among general people, and this could cause a greater crisis than the Covid-19 pandemic in the country, BSMMU VC Dr Sharfuddin Ahmed has said.
The vice chancellor of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) was speaking to a Japanese delegation comprising faculty members of Yokohama University and top officials from two biotechnical and industrial companies yesterday.
Addressing reporters after the meeting, the VC said the number of deaths caused by the overuse of antibiotics may be more than double the deaths caused by Covid-19 by 2050.
He called for immediate measures to prevent pharmacies from selling antibiotics without prescriptions from registered doctors.
A 2014 review commissioned by the UK government estimated that AMR could cause 10 million deaths a year by 2050. The report, titled “Antimicrobial resistance: Tackling a crisis for the health and wealth of nations,” was prepared by Lord Jim O’Neill and his team.
It described the estimate as a “broad brush estimate,” not a certain forecast.
This is not the first time that a health expert has called for regulating the use of antibiotics. A study conducted by Poribesh Bachao Andolon (Poba) in 2016 revealed that about 56% of antibiotics prescribed to patients in Dhaka hardly worked, as germs had developed antibiotic resistance due to their indiscriminate use.
Poba collected 305 samples from patients at three hospitals in the capital and tested them at government-recognized laboratories to identify the antibiotic resistance of the germs they contained.
In 2019, BSMMU Pharmacology Department Professor Dr Sayedur Rahman stressed the need for monitoring to ensure rational antibiotic use. However, there has been little progress in the implementation of such monitoring measures.
The World Health Organization classifies antibiotics into three categories: an access group prescribed for a wide range of primary level infections, watch group for higher resistance bacteria, and reserve group for when all alternatives fail.
Of the 21 antibiotics discovered till now, seven were in the access group, nine in the watch group and two in the reserve group. Among them, 15 are progressively becoming ineffectual.
