Antibiotic resistance in India

India is one of the highest antibiotic consuming countries in the world. Though antibiotics have helped treat many diseases and save lives, their overuse and misuse have created a new menace-antibiotic resistance.

Antibiotic resistance is a major health problem in India. A group of doctors calling themselves ‘doctors without dodders’ have made studies into this problem. In India, health providers routinely hand over antibiotics to patients suffering from simple health issues like cold. The team of doctors has studied thousands of patients in West Bengal found this practice to be very common.

Most patients who have been prescribed antibiotics for a certain period stop taking the antibiotics when the symptoms disappear, giving a chance to the drug resistant virus/bacteria to multiply. This puts the patient as well as other people at risk.