Beware the superbug

Antibiotics have long been one of humanity’s greatest weapons in combating disease and death. In fact, they appear to have been so useful that people have gone too far in their use, to the point that the antibiotic shield itself appears to have become a danger. A former chief medical officer for England has warned the world of a growing antibiotic emergency that could claim millions of lives over the coming years and will have drastic impacts on people across the globe. As per estimates, death rates from antimicrobial resistance (AMR) AMRs will be doubled by this year and almost 40 million people are expected to lose their lives to superbugs over the next 25 years. The elderly are expected to be the ones most at risk. Simply put, AMR often results from the excessive and/or inappropriate use of antibiotics, a problem particularly prevalent in poorer countries like Pakistan with weak enforcement of rules governing the purchase and use of medications, with AMR leading to around 700,000 deaths annually in the country as infections caused by bacteria that are not responding to third- and fourth-generation antibiotics according to health experts.

This makes AMR the third leading cause of death in Pakistan. Aside from misuse of antibiotics, AMR is also reportedly spread by the fact that about 70 per cent of all antibiotics are given to livestock, prompting resistance to evolve in animals. While it is not exactly clear what can be done about the use of antibiotics among livestock, one certain thing is the need to strengthen regulations surrounding antibiotic use throughout the country. One of the side effects of the gross inadequacy of our health services has been the unchecked rise of self-medication and diagnosis and health experts have now revealed that an alarming 70 per cent of antibiotics are being used unnecessarily in Pakistan. However, it is hard to blame many ordinary people for self-medicating and diagnosing when there is barely one physician for every thousand people in the country and almost half of the population lacks access to basic health services. Then there is the fact that pharmacies often do not bother to ask for a prescription when selling drugs that require them and that even trained physicians are not always averse to giving unjustified prescriptions for antibiotics, as per health experts.

This likely explains why Pakistan is the world’s third-largest consumer of antibiotics after India and China, with antibiotic medicines worth Rs126 billion consumed in the country in 2023 alone. Aside from stricter supervision of doctors and those pretending to be doctors, there also needs to be an expansion of healthcare services in the country to cope with this issue. People need to be able to get a diagnosis and a consultation at affordable prices to ensure that they are prescribed the right medication and not given antibiotics unnecessarily. Moreover, the unbridled access to medication as long as one has the cash has to end. This means cracking down on pharmacies issuing antibiotics and other drugs without a prescription and those selling medication without a licence. The consequences for not doing so could be a superbug that makes the COVID pandemic look relatively less lethal and simple to deal with.