A new study has brought to light the serious consequences of the unregulated use of antibiotics. If this situation continues then by 2050 the annual death toll due to antibiotics use could reach could reach 10 million. This would be higher than the number of deaths from cancer, cholera, measles and traffic accidents combined.
Looking into the serious health problems which Unregulated Antibiotic use can cause, the Ministry of Health and Prevention (MoHP) is working on new legislation to end the dangerous consequences of the random intake of antibiotics.
“I would like to point out that the new Federal Law on the ‘Regulation of the Profession of Pharmacy’ is extensively addressing the issue of medicines, which must be disposed only by prescription,” said Dr Amin Hussein Al Amiri, who is assistant undersecretary for Public Health Policy and Licences, chairman of the higher committee for Drug Alerting in the UAE. He said that the excessive use of Antibiotics could lead to epidemics.
He also said that there should be law according to which antibiotics should be used only with a prescription.
According to studies, although the non-prescription sale of antibiotics is illegal in the GCC states, 68 percent of pharmacies in Abu Dhabi, 78 percent in Riyadh and 87 out of 88 pharmacies in Saudi Arabia sell them without a prescription.
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Some of the reasons which have been put forward as the reason for the growth of Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are the poor hand-hygiene compliance in hospitals and the region’s large population of migrant workers.
Many experts point out that most of the physicians believe that prescribib=ng antibiotic is necessary for the betterment of the patient.some of the physicians are even under pressure from the patients to prescribe antibiotics.
Many patients even don’t take the full course of antibiotics.
Aetna International, a global healthcare company has outlined effective strategies in a new white paper titled ‘Antibiotic resistance: Toward better stewardship of a precious medical resource’.
According to the paper, the main causes of antimicrobial resistance are misuse and over-prescription; the use of antibiotics in agriculture; a lack of research and an anaemic drug pipeline; poor hygiene is also pointed out as one of the reasons.
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