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It’s a case of sheer short-sightedness. Having unveiled its ambitious National Antibiotic Policy (NAP) without considering the hurdles in its implementation in rural areas with poor medical facilities, the Health Ministry has now been forced to put on hold the move aimed at regulation of sale of antibiotics in the country.
It is now planning to evolve standard guidelines whereby non-medical practitioners and chemists in the rural areas in the country will first be trained to prescribe antibiotics, a move intended to ensure villagers have access to drugs.
In effect, it means, antibiotics in India will continue to be sold unregulated over the counters for an indefinite period.
“We need to elaborate the policy by making the drugs available in the periphery for which guidelines have to be developed. Such medicines have to be available with the pharmacists or chemists at the periphery with certain restrictions,” said VM Katoch, Director General of Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).
While admitting that there has been indiscriminate usage of antibiotics leading to further resistance to various vital drugs, he noted that it was not easy to implement the NAP in toto.
“Yes, while on the one hand there has been inappropriate use of antibiotics in the urban areas leading to its resistance, on the other there is acute lack of basic facilities and proper medication in the rural areas,” Katoch said, emphasising that there is a need for balancing treatment access and antibiotic resistance.
He noted that non-medical professionals have to be trained properly in prescribing drugs in proper combination. “There has been the tendency of the medical fraternity (doctors) to exclude everybody. But to save lives you have to select more people (pharmacists) who may be given certain inventory (drugs) to use it for the certain purpose. We need to rely on these pharmacists.”
Though Katoch said that the issue would be dealt as soon as possible, he was not specific about the deadline.
Earlier, speaking at a seminar “First Global Forum on Bacterial Infections” on Monday Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad too shared the dilemma of the Government over the issue. “No doubt there has been rampant usage of the antibiotics and the policy will restrict access to new generation antibiotics over the counter but what about the villagers who in the absence of the prescription from doctors will have no access to such medicines even when in emergency,” he wondered.
“My Ministry has received representations from various stakeholders and a balanced view in the matter would be taken. Although resistance is global problem, shared by developing and developed countries, our solutions must be local and sensitive to constraints of respective health systems…We have an urgent need to protect the effectiveness of our most affordable drugs.”
It is now planning to evolve standard guidelines whereby non-medical practitioners and chemists in the rural areas in the country will first be trained to prescribe antibiotics, a move intended to ensure villagers have access to drugs.
In effect, it means, antibiotics in India will continue to be sold unregulated over the counters for an indefinite period.
“We need to elaborate the policy by making the drugs available in the periphery for which guidelines have to be developed. Such medicines have to be available with the pharmacists or chemists at the periphery with certain restrictions,” said VM Katoch, Director General of Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).
While admitting that there has been indiscriminate usage of antibiotics leading to further resistance to various vital drugs, he noted that it was not easy to implement the NAP in toto.
“Yes, while on the one hand there has been inappropriate use of antibiotics in the urban areas leading to its resistance, on the other there is acute lack of basic facilities and proper medication in the rural areas,” Katoch said, emphasising that there is a need for balancing treatment access and antibiotic resistance.
He noted that non-medical professionals have to be trained properly in prescribing drugs in proper combination. “There has been the tendency of the medical fraternity (doctors) to exclude everybody. But to save lives you have to select more people (pharmacists) who may be given certain inventory (drugs) to use it for the certain purpose. We need to rely on these pharmacists.”
Though Katoch said that the issue would be dealt as soon as possible, he was not specific about the deadline.
Earlier, speaking at a seminar “First Global Forum on Bacterial Infections” on Monday Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad too shared the dilemma of the Government over the issue. “No doubt there has been rampant usage of the antibiotics and the policy will restrict access to new generation antibiotics over the counter but what about the villagers who in the absence of the prescription from doctors will have no access to such medicines even when in emergency,” he wondered.
“My Ministry has received representations from various stakeholders and a balanced view in the matter would be taken. Although resistance is global problem, shared by developing and developed countries, our solutions must be local and sensitive to constraints of respective health systems…We have an urgent need to protect the effectiveness of our most affordable drugs.”
