17th Asia Pacific Congress of Pediatrics: Medics warn against irrational use of antibiotics

LAHORE:Irrational and unjustifiable use of antibiotics by the physicians as well as patients themselves without consulting their doctors is  limiting options in fight against deadly bacteria, senior health experts warned on Sunday, saying over the counter sale of antibiotics, over prescription and unchecked use of these drugs is resulting in Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR), a condition where antibiotics don’t work against most of the germs.

They also criticised the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) for registering hundreds of antibiotics and making them freely available without any prescription, saying hundreds of drug companies have hundreds of brands of antibiotics, whose excessive use has become a serious public health issue in Pakistan. “Easy availability of antibiotics is one of the most serious issues in Pakistan where people at pharmacies are selling these drugs like candies. Patients take these drugs for a day and two and when the symptoms of the disease are gone, they stop taking these antibiotics, making bacteria resistant to these drugs”, said Prof Dr Jamal Raza, a senior pediatrician while speaking at the sidelines of 17th Asia Pacific Congress of Pediatrics which concluded here on Sunday.

Hundreds of experts from various Europe, Middle East, Far East, Africa as well as United States, Australia and Canada as well as different cities of the country attended the international moot and presented their research papers on different health aspects of newborns, children and adolescents.

Terming antibiotic drugs as most important invention in the history of mankind that saved millions and millions of lives, health experts at the international moot recommended an immediate ban on the over the counter sale of antibiotics as it was leading to most serious issue of antimicrobial resistance as in case of XDR (Extensively Drug Resistant) Typhoid, which is resistant to most of the third generation antibiotics and has become a serious cause of concern for the public health experts.

Prof Jamal Raza maintained that over-registration of the antibiotics by the regulatory authorities was another reason behind misuse of antibiotics in Pakistan, saying hundreds of brands of these medicines were available and in order to sell them, sales staff of the drug companies use all kinds of tactics to meet their sale targets.

“There is an urgent need to promote rational and justifiable use of antibiotics so that these drugs could be used for a longer period of time unfortunately, even the latest antibiotics are proving ineffective against the bacteria due to their irrational and excessive use”, he deplored.

Another eminent pediatrician from Aga Khan University Hospital (AKUH) Dr Asad Ali said excessive and irrational use of antibiotics was not only resulting in Antimicrobial Resistance in humans but it was particularly a dangerous practice in children where these drugs also kill their healthy or beneficial bacteria, causing serious health issues for the children.

“There are 10 times more bacteria in human body than its own cells and antibiotics are like a bomb, which kill all types of bacteria present in the human body. Irrational use of antibiotics in children deprive them of healthy flora, which result in serious health consequences for them”, Dr Asad Ali added. He maintained that ‘bacteria are living with human beings for over two billion years’ while humans have invented antibiotics in last few years so bacteria know how to make them resistant to these drugs to continue surviving in the human body and added that there is a need to limit the use of these life-saving drugs before they become completely ineffective. To a query, Dr Ali said most of the physicians and consultant pediatricians use antibiotics in good faith to save lives of children, adding that in case of meningitis and other life-threatening conditions, treating physicians don’t want to take risks and use whatever available to them to save lives of the children.

Several other experts at the international conference urged the authorities to take measures to prevent over the counter availability of prescription drugs especially antibiotics while they also urged their colleagues, including general physicians not to prescribe these drugs until and unless they are extremely important.