ISLAMABAD – The Ministry of Health has failed to form any national antibiotic policy for doctors and the pharmaceutical industry, thus allowing them to play with the lives of poor people as micro-organism resistance in Pakistan is increasing due to the unnecessary use of antibiotics.
Micro-organism resistance or the Anti-Microbial Resistance (AMR) is the resistance of a micro-organism to an antimicrobial medicine to which it was previously sensitive. According to health experts, resistant organisms (they include bacteria, viruses and some parasites) are able to withstand attack by antimicrobial medicines, such as antibiotics, anti-virals and anti-malarials, so that standard treatments become ineffective and infections persist and may spread to others.
AMR is a consequence of the use, particularly the misuse, of antimicrobial medicines and develops when a micro-organism mutates or acquires a resistance gene. An official in the Health Ministry said on condition of anonymity that in absence of any antibiotic policy, doctors and medical practitioners all over the country prescribe unnecessary and extensive use of antibiotics, thus the antibiotic resistance was increasing in Pakistan.
He said Pakistan was one of the few countries which were facing serious problem of antimicrobial resistance. “There is no regulation of health care profession and all kinds of medicines are available all over the country. Pharmacies are operated by unqualified individuals and majority of people in pharmaceutical industry also lack ethical promotion practices,” he said.
President of Pakistan Pharmacists Association Syed Khalid Saeed Bukhari said it was unfortunate that a large number of countries except Pakistan had an antibiotic policy. He said antimicrobial resistance and its global spread threatened the continued effectiveness of many medicines (antibiotics) used today to treat the infectious diseases which were considered un-treatable. Once the resistance develops there is no way back, except to shift to a higher generation antibiotics.
This not only adds to the health cost of an individual and country as a whole, but it also increases the risk of resistance against these newer antibiotics. “Pharmaceutical companies use every tactics to promote antibiotics for making money and playing with the future generations,” he added. He said that hospitals were required to have a documented antibiotic policy and dispense medicines according to the policy.
He was of the opinion that a doctor should not promote and recommend the use of antimicrobial drugs effective against resistant bacteria, viruses, protozoa and fungi for infections that can be treated by the first line drugs. A source in Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) said that they did not have any such policy at the hospital.
He said, “It depends on doctor’s will what antibiotic he wants to prescribe, and there is no record of prescriptions as well that a doctor prescribe which antibiotic and for how many times.” Dr Waseem Khawaja, spokesman for PIMS, said it was not in his knowledge whether any antibiotic policy was being followed at the hospital.
Health Deputy Director General Dr Arshad Karim Chandio said the ministry had formed infection control bodies in government hospitals to prevent infections. “These bodies are responsible to bound doctors from irrational use of antibiotics,” he said.
