Drug resistant micro-organisms, the reasons

Hello friends,
Today I am going to discuss a topic related to antibiotic resistance. I am a medical microbiologist working in a corporate hospital, which mostly deals with critical care patients. 

Antibiotic resistance, is one of the greatest danger lurking around our community and most of us are unaware of it. Unless you face some medical emergency, you won't even care about it too. If there are 16-20 antibiotics used in hospitals, in most of the cases, we had seen a resistance of about 12-13 antibiotics in 70-80% of cases. 
What it meant to you all? If you get any serious illness, most antibiotics won't work on you, you need more expensive antibiotics and the cost of your stay is also more. These higher end antibiotics, being narrow spectrum, also affect adversely to your liver and kidneys, so doctors have to plan dosage regimen to keep it to minimum. 

Why is antibiotic resistance so prevalent in our country? A lot of reasons could be thought of;

1: Over the counter antibiotics used without doctors prescription. (by pharmacist or quacks)
2. Use of antibiotics even in viral or any other fever.
3. Over use of antibiotics ( killing of good bacteria of gut and proliferation of resistant bacteria in body)
4. Non compliance in using antibiotics (not following complete dosage regimen of 3-5 days)
5. Use of antibiotics by veterinary personnel (like poultry, goat, other animals and we take their meat)
6. Improper disposal of antibiotics ( by laboratories and hospitals, household antibiotics in drain, expired antibiotics in the river or water bodies)


What we eat, what we drink, is now filled with drug resistant microorganisms (bacteria and candida). And we are ourselves responsible for it, each one of us. There is no awareness, no facilities and no checks on these illegal activities happening in regular basis as no one cares.

Result? Even common illness are not treated by antibiotics and it will become bigger problem later.
Simple hospital stay or surgeries will make you prone to infection of hospital flora if strict aseptic measures not maintained.

What to do??
1. Only registered doctor prescription for getting antibiotics. Doctor will decide if your problem is bacterial illness or viral one.
2. Proper follow up of antibiotic use. ( if doctor says 5 days then have antibiotic for 5 days rather than stopping it midway.
3. Proper facilities in place for disposal of expired antibiotics, make people aware of it and strict punishment to those who discard it in river or community water bodies.
4. Regulation of antibiotics given to animals, be it fish, poultry or mammals.
5.Awareness campaign about antibiotics and antibiotic resistance.
6. Use of narrow spectrum antibiotics in the primary level after discussion with medical microbiologist (if positive in culture and staining.)


That's all for today guys....hope you get some ideas about the danger of antibiotic resistance.