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Ever come across a situation where your stubborn infection was not healing despite taking medicines?
Did your doctor have to change medicines for you? Can you imagine a Covid-like situation caused by a
bacteria, not a virus, and against which there were no existing or new antibiotics? Well then, you are
probably not new to what we call ‘superbugs’.
But why are they called superbugs? Because they are able to resist the action of medicines that were
made to kill them, such as antibiotics. Because this resistance is not against one but could be against
many antibiotics, and also because there is rarely any new antibiotic in future pipeline. Do you need to
worry? Yes.
Today there is a global urgency to act because due to antibiotic resistance, antibiotics are failing to be
effective not just in hospitals or ICUs, but even in common bacterial infections. Believe it or not, In India,
in 2019, nearly 3 lakh deaths were attributed to antibiotic resistance and over 10 lakh deaths were
associated with it. This is because of overuse and misuse of antibiotics in human-health, animal-health,
crop and food-animal production. More the use, more is the resistance in bacteria and more is the
spread further through food, waste and environment routes. This ‘silent’ pandemic is perhaps not so
silent anymore.
The talk is intended to discuss the issue of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), and antibiotic resistance in
particular, at the interface of science and policy. It will reflect on the science behind AMR, its impacts,
One Health drivers, and how our day to day ‘real’ practices and behavior can contribute to as well as
avert antibiotic resistance. It will also apprise the audience about CSE’s findings from the ground, and
policy perspectives on the issue, how our national plans, laws, guidance have a role to play, where are
the gaps and what more needs to be done. |