Latest update April 24th, 2024 12:59 AM
Nov 27, 2016 News
PAT DIAL
Every year the World Health Organization (WHO) designates a number of global health days or months where attention is focused worldwide on certain diseases and issues fundamental to the health and well-being of nations and individuals. Such would include a focus on Tuberculosis, Malaria and Tobacco use.
Other global organizations with similar aspirations to WHO, among them Consumers International and Codex Alimentarius, conduct campaigns world-wide in support of such global health days or months.
November has been designated “Antibiotic Awareness Month” and both Consumers International with its devoted membership in many countries of the world and Codex Alimentarius with its wide international membership have been supportive in their campaigns. Indeed, last year CI ran a very successful campaign in informing the world of the dangers of livestock being overfed with antibiotics and the focus was on chicken.
Most of the major fast foods companies with their conglomeration of restaurants worldwide have moved away from using antibiotic -fed chicken with their suppliers having to conform.
This year, the stress is on humans and the information revealed is frightening. The world has been misusing and overusing antibiotics and this is seriously undermining the progress Medical Science has achieved since World War II: Antibiotics are beginning to be ineffective and we are threatened with a “post-antibiotic age” where very minor ailments and what today are termed routine surgeries could result in death or permanent health impairment.
When antibiotics are misused, the dangerous bacteria begin to develop resistance and mutant strains evolve which transform themselves into new strains of bacteria which present antibiotics cannot eliminate.
For example, this is beginning to happen with Tuberculosis. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, if one contracted Tuberculosis, the disease was regarded as terminal and early death was felt to be inevitable since there were no cure or effective medicines. With the advent of antibiotics in the 1940’s and 1950’s, Tuberculosis became successfully treatable and it was assumed that it would be eliminated as small pox had been.
In addition to dangerous bacteria developing resistance and mutating into new strains, misuse of antibiotics could kill both the dangerous as well as the useful bacteria. For example, if the bacteria protecting the walls of the intestines are destroyed, this could cause inflammation of the tissues.
Or a surgeon may be operating on a patient whom he was unaware had developed a resistance to antibiotics. When the surgeon administers the normal antibiotics assuming they would be effective, and when they are not, the life of the patient could be seriously endangered. Antibiotic resistance leads to longer illnesses and more deaths.
The underlying causes of the global antibiotic crisis could be traced to a number of factors which can be corrected. The first cause is the over-prescribing of antibiotics. Since antibiotics had been so effective within a physician’s early experience, he/she has an almost knee-jerk reaction to prescribe antibiotics, even though some other drug could have been as effective.
For instance, sulphur drugs could still be effective. To prevent physicians and other health professionals from over prescribing antibiotics, Medical Councils, Ministries of Health and the training institutions will constantly have to enjoin health care workers of the proper use of antibiotics.
A fair percentage of the Guyanese public have access to antibiotics which they use for any kind of ailment, whether it is a stomach upset or a cold. They treat it in the same way they used to treat aspirins. The public needs to be educated and informed about the serious side-effects of overuse of antibiotics and the sale of antibiotics needs to be much more restricted. Quick and sustained action needs to be taken by the Ministry of Health.
Overuse of antibiotics on livestock and fish farms, especially in fodder results in humans who use such animals for food unwittingly ingesting into their systems large doses of antibiotics. The Ministry of Agriculture and the veterinary profession must join forces in educating farmers.
The health clinics and hospitals need to tighten their infection controls. This can easily be achieved since all health workers are aware of the value of infection controls.
It would seem to us that prevention and control of the misuse or overuse of antibiotics by humans and livestock farms is achievable but it requires sustained public education in the media and schools and the unreserved commitment of the medical and veterinary professions.
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