Question

how can medical professionals combat the problem of antibiotic resistance?

Answer 1

1. Patients should not demand antibiotics when a health care professional says the drugs are not needed and health care professionals should prescribe antibiotics only for infections they believe to be caused by bacteria.

2. Protect the antibiotics that we have and prevent the spread of MDR-pathogens in health care settings.

3. The use of substandard antibiotics is a major problem. It has been found in various surveys that antibiotics are substandard (either adulterated in their formulation, having reduced concentrations of antibiotics than listed on the label, and post- dated antibiotics which have lost activity because of inadequate storage and no longer have potency).

4. Improve our diagnostic capabilities to rapidly determine who has a treatable infection and respond to an antimicrobial agent.

5. We should encourgae our nations to invest time and effort in the prevention treatment of infectious diseases worldwide.

6. Develop new classes of antimicrobial agents and destroy old antimicrobial agents which are no longer effective because of progressive antibiotic resistance.

7. We need to promote the use of non-antibiotic therapies to prevent or treat infectious diseases.

8. There should be no over-the-counter (OTC) antibiotics available and India has recenlty banned the OTC antibiotics which must be followed in other countries also.