News
It begins with diagnosis
India is one of the world’s biggest consumer of antibiotics, and antibiotic resistance is a looming threat. In a big step to address the widespread problem of inadequate access to diagnostic tests, the World Health Organisation (WHO) last week published the first ever essential diagnostics list (EDL). The first EDL contains 113 tests; 58 are basic tests (e.g. haemoglobin, blood sugar, complete blood count, white cell count, pregnancy test) intended to detect and monitor a wide range of common communicable and non-communicable conditions. The remaining 55 tests can diagnose common infections, including HIV, TB, malaria, hepatitis B and C, the human papillomavirus (HPV) and syphilis.
Source: Times of India
What WHO’s essential diagnostic list means for India
India must boost its laboratory infrastructure to offer comprehensive diagnostic services that cover a wider range of conditions, including antimicrobial resistance and non-communicable diseases to help the country move away from a syndrome-based approach to targeted therapy approach.
Source: Hindustan Times
Indian Medical Association: Use but avoid abuse of antibiotics
Medical forums in India are getting wary of increased 'Antibiotic Resistance' (ABR) cases surfacing and issuing guidelines to doctors, chemists and patients on their careful usage. The Indian Medical Association (IMA) has begun four campaigns to tackle this public health threat - 'Jaroorat Bhi Hai Kya', '3A Avoid Antibiotic Abuse', 'Use Wisely not Widely' and 'Think Before you Ink' - to sensitise healthcare professionals on the issue.
Source: India Today
Antibiotics: A war that we are losing
More lives are being lost to non-life threatening illnesses as these are becoming harder to treat due to antibiotic resistance.
Source: Hindustan Times
India’s antibiotic use doubles in 15 years, common infections harder to treat: Study
Antibiotic use more than doubled in India between 2000 and 2015, fuelling antibiotic resistance that is making common infections such as E.coli, strep throat, pneumonia and tuberculosis more difficult to treat.
Antibiotic use in India went up from 3.2 billion defined daily doses (DDD) in 2000 to 6.5 billion in 2015, the study said, reflecting increasing economic growth and more access to antibiotics in both the public and private sectors.
Source: Hindustan Times
India must take the lead in dealing with the threat of antimicrobial resistance
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has become a global threat and developing countries like India are at the epicentre of this problem.
India has conveyed its willingness to address the problem of AMR by coming up with a National Action Plan (NAP), which is supported by seven ministries.
Source: Hindustan Times
Antimicrobial resistance: Nursing homes, private hospitals come under watch
The World Health Organisation’s new global antimicrobial surveillance system has reported widespread antibiotic resistance among 500,000 people suffering from suspected bacterial infections across 22 countries.
The ICMR has signed an MoU with pharma major Pfizer Ltd for setting up a ‘Centre to Combat Antimicrobial Resistance’ that would implement a series of interventions ranging from instituting AMR stewardship programmes for nursing homes to scaling up the present surveillance network, thereby promoting the responsible use of antibiotics.
Source: Hindustan Times
Superbugs becoming resistant to more drugs, may even lead to death
A decade ago, an E coli infection meant an inconvenient bout of diarrhoea. Now it may kill you. K pneumoniae and Escherichia coli bacteria, which cause common lung and stomach infections, have 80% immunity against the third-generation antibiotics cephalosporins.
Source: Hindustan Times
ICMR initiates drive to combat drug resistance
Antimicrobial resistance in organisms is turning into a serious issue for physicians and patients alike.
ICMR along with the Centre for Disease Control, USA started its first workshop on Antimicrobial Stewardship programme in Chennai to reduce inappropriate use of antibiotics in hospitals. The AMSP will help to evaluate initiatives to improve prescribing antibiotics, provide timely feedback and classify different antimicrobials.
Source: New Indian Express
Roadmap to tackle AMR on the anvil
India is stepping up its fight against antimicrobial resistance (AMR). For the first time, a standard operating procedure will be rolled out for hospitals to not only map drug resistant infections acquired during hospital treatment, but also bring down infection rates.
The ICMR has been on the resistance trail since 2014 when it set up six nodal centres in four hospitals to record and report drug resistance.
Source: The Hindu
India Becomes Largest Antibiotics Consumer Surpassing China, US, Says Report
Excessive use of antibiotics has made once easily treatable bacterial infections more difficult and often impossible to cure because bacteria evolve rapidly to evade antibiotics, leading to drug resistance.
Due to the over the counter sale of antibiotics, poorly regulated private hospital sector, high rates of hospital infection, cheap antibiotics, frequent infectious disease outbreaks and rising incomes have been increasing the demand for antibiotics.
Source: Medical Buyer
Draft norms released on antibiotic usage
Kochi: The draft guidelines on usage of antibiotics was released by state health minister V S Sivakumar at the national symposium on antibiotics stewardship, infection control, held here.
Twelve associations including IMA, IAP, government doctors associations, resolved to implement the four Rs Right Drug, Right Dose, Right Duration and Right Frequency of rational antimicrobial prescription to stop emergence and spread of antibiotic resistance in their own hospitals and community at large
Source: Times of India
With antimicrobial resistance on the rise, hospitals in South advised to avoid 3 antibiotics
In the wake of a growing health threat from antimicrobial resistance, the ICMR has advised tertiary care hospitals in south India to avoid at least three antibiotics used in the treatment of multi-drug resistance.
The ICMR has advised tertiary care hospitals to use these antibiotics only as the last resort on critically–ill patients.
Source: The NEWS Minute
ICMR tracking drug resistance in six pathogens
Antibiotic resistance data from four big hospitals is being studied and analysed for the first time in India to help forecast the drug-resistance pattern that may surface in future.
There is alarm over rising resistance to antibiotics in India, largely attributed to the indiscriminate use to treat routine infections like cough, cold and fever and their over-the-counter availability. Using antibiotics inappropriately, such as stopping the dosage mid-course has added to the resistance.
Source: Times of India
Physicians lead the rational drug use drive
Overuse and misuse of antibiotics, self medication, lack of diagnostic facilities and poor stewardship practices have fuelled the problem of antibiotic resistance which is now assuming alarming proportions
The clinicians and surgeons in our country have an important role to play not just as responsible prescribers but also as someone who can, through counseling, influence patient’s behaviors and ensure better compliance and adherence to prescribed drugs and also cut down unnecessary prescription by ensuring treatment guided by evidence, whenever available.
Source: NEWS 18
ICMR: Hospitals flouting antibiotic regulations
After India recently reported the highest rate of antibiotic resistant bacteria in the world in a survey of 40 nations, ICMR has shown that tertiary hospitals in the country are potential breeding grounds for drug resistant bacteria that threaten effectiveness of treatment rendering several infections hard to address.
The AMSP is among the best known methods of prolonging the shelf life of existing and new anti-microbial agents (AMAs) and is critical because while existing antibiotics continue to be abused, newer ones are hardly being developed.
Source: The Tribune
Antibiotic resistance is a real threat. India needs to wake up to it now
On 21 September, the United Nations General Assembly will convene a one-day high-level meeting at the UN Headquarters in New York on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR), with the participation of member states, NGOs, civil society, the private sector and academic institutions, in order to provide input
The World Health Assembly Resolution 68.7, entitled "Global Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance" signifies a global consensus on the issue and the urgency to tackle it.
Source: Catch News
India renews drug-resistant superbug fight
India, one of the world's biggest consumers of antibiotics, has issued new national guidelines on their use as part of a drive to fight the rise of drug-resistant superbugs.
Source: Courier Mail
50% hospital antibiotic use improper, ICMR issues treatment norms for 10 infections
Amid evidence of over 50 per cent of antibiotic use in hospitals being inappropriate, India’s apex medical research body, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), today issued guidelines for the treatment of 10 common infections. The effort aims to stem the growing trend of disease-causing pathogens becoming resistant to antibiotics due to irrational use.
Source: Tribune India
Antibiotic resistance is serious. And Health Ministry is now concerned
Anti-microbial resistance (AMR) is a grave threat – it could cause critical antibiotics to fail, with bacteria becoming increasingly resistant to them. To tackle what could be a national health emergency in the near future, Union Health Minister JP Nadda on Wednesday urged several ministries to come together to solve the problem.
Nadda pointed out that the misuse of antibiotics in the medical and livestock industries was one of the root causes of this problem, and said this was a 'big challenge' that his ministry alone could not tackle.
Source: Catch News
India issues fresh antibiotic guidelines to tackle superbug menace
MUMBAI: India, one of the world's biggest consumers of antibiotics, has issued new national guidelines on their use as part of a drive to fight the rise of drug-resistant superbugs. Superbugs are seen as a growing threat to modern medicine, with the emergence in the past year of infections resistant to even last-resort antibiotics.
In India, antibiotic-resistant neonatal infections claim the lives of 60,000 newborn babies each year, according to the Review on Antimicrob.
Source: Economic Times
India issues fresh antibiotic guidelines to tackle superbug menace
MUMBAI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - India, one of the world's biggest consumers of antibiotics, has issued new national guidelines on their use as part of a drive to fight the rise of drug-resistant superbugs. Superbugs are seen as a growing threat to modern medicine, with the emergence in the past year of infections resistant to even last-resort antibiotics.
In India, antibiotic-resistant neonatal infections claim the lives of 60,000 newborn babies each year, according to the Review on Antimicrobial Resistance paper published in 2016.
Source: Reuters
ICMR Study: Nearly 50% people are resistant to antibiotics for common infections
Indiscriminate use of antibiotics has made close to 50 per cent people develop resistance to strong antibiotics used to treat common hospital-acquired bacterial infections, according to the preliminary results of a study conducted by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).
The ongoing study, which was launched in 2013, aimed to study antibiotic resistance in six pathogen groups, namely typhoid, fungal infections, hospital-acquired infections, bacterial infections like staphylococcus and diarrheoa. The data had been collected from patients at four medical colleges — AIIMS, JIPMER Puducherry, PGI Chandigarh and CMC Vellore.
Source: Indian Express
US pumps in $ 8 million to map drug-resistant infections
The US government’s Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA), launched two years ago to contain the spread of new and emergent infections following the Ebola outbreak, has pumped in a whopping $ 8 million to map the rising anti-microbial resistance in India and build capacities to tackle it better. The grant was announced late last year and work is set to start soon, with clearances from the Union Health Ministry now in place.
The rising anti-microbial resistance is a serious health concern in India, and also figured in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s meeting with US President Barack Obama in September last year.
Source: Thehindu
Losing ground in the war on superbugs
It is a rain-battered Sunday afternoon in Mumbai and Prakash* has just finished his shift as a security guard at an ATM. He says he has always enjoyed his work, even when he was addicted to drugs, and even after he tested positive for HIV about a decade ago. But a few years later, he hit a roadblock.
“My first line of treatment started in 2012, but my CD4 (number of cells in a cubic millimetre of blood and a key indicator of HIV progression) kept dropping, touching 193 (normal range is 500-1500),” he says.
Source: Thehindu
Drug-resistant bug Klebsiella causes worry
A bug that doctors until about three years ago treated with moderate-class antibiotics is now causing worry in intensive care units of hospitals across the country. Doctors report that third-generation antibiotics — carbapanems — are failing to treat the Klebsiella pathogen, leading to higher mortality in patients and peg the resistance at up to 50 per cent. In Mumbai, the bug is being recorded in 10-20 per cent of the patients in ICUs of major public hospitals.
Source: Thehindu
