Context:

• This is the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) prescription to combat the growing menace of antibiotic abuse and burgeoning resistance worldwide.

About:

• WHO has suggested the adoption of ‘Access, Watch and Reserve’,
• An approach that specifies which antibiotics to use for the most common and serious infections,
• which ones ought to be available at all times in the healthcare system, and those that must be used sparingly, or reserved and used only as a last resort.

AWARE Tool:

Antimicrobial Resistance:

• Antimicrobial resistance (AMR or AR) is the ability of a microbe to resist the effects of medication that once could successfully treat the microbe
• The term antibiotic resistance is a subset of AMR, as it applies only to bacteria becoming resistant to antibiotics.
• Antibiotics are medicines used to prevent and treat bacterial infections. Antibiotic resistance occurs when bacteria change in response to the use of these medicines.
• Bacteria, not humans or animals, become antibiotic-resistant.
• These bacteria may infect humans and animals, and the infections they cause are harder to treat than those caused by non-resistant bacteria.
• Antibiotic resistance occurs naturally, but misuse of antibiotics in humans and animals is accelerating the process.
• A growing number of infections – such as pneumonia, tuberculosis, gonorrhoea, and salmonellosis – are becoming harder to treat as the antibiotics used to treat them become less effective.
• It leads to higher medical costs, prolonged hospital stays, and increased mortality.

Prevention and Control:

• Antibiotic resistance is accelerated by the Misuse and overuse of Antibiotics, as well as poor infection prevention and control.
• In India, the Health Ministry has made it mandatory to display a 5mm •thick red vertical band on the packaging of prescription • only
  drugs to sensitize people to be cautious while buying these medicines that are widely sold without prescriptions.

Way Ahead:

• There is need to sensitize health professional including Doctors, Pharmacist regarding menace that antibiotic can cause.
• The allied medicinal practitioner such BAMS, BHMS and other doctors who are spread at grass root level prescribes antibiotics rampantly, should be regulated.
• BAMS, BHMS and other allied medicinal practitioner must not be allowed to prescribe Higher antibiotics.