The National Treatment Guidelines for Antimicrobial Use in infectious diseases needs to be supported with norms for prescription audits and standard treatment guidelines, said Dr. BR Jagashetty, former National Adviser (Drugs Control) to MoHFW.

It is now critical to ensure that the general practitioners at clinics and doctors’ across government and corporate hospitals who are seen to be strapped for time with extensive patient consultations, are made aware about these guidelines. There is need for the medical centres to organise education programmes to highlight the rational use of antibiotic with appropriate interventions and strategies. It is critical also to ensure the medical fraternity participate in such awareness programmes. With hospital acquired infections being a large component for delayed recovery, the medical experts need to be cautious in treating the same, he added.
 
The National Treatment Guidelines for Antimicrobial Use is in sync with the several national health programmes like the Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme, national AIDS agenda and National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme. Along with these, the government should focus on mandating prescription audit and also fix a time frame validity for prescription. It can be a period of 10 days. This will also stall indiscriminate OTC purchase of antibiotics for a simple health condition by people. Caution should also be exerted on medication safety particularly for drugs like hormones, vitamins, analgesics and antipyretic which have serious side-effects during over-consumption. Prudence on over-prescribing these drugs, would reduce cost and toxicity besides significantly delay the emergence of antimicrobial resistance, pointed out Dr. Jagashetty.
 
The country is also facing a serious issue with the multi drug resistance which is rampant among tuberculosis patients. “We need to ensure that this does not seep into other infectious diseases caused by bacteria, viruses, fungi or parasites. This is where doctors need to be more responsible and prescribe medications rationally. In addition, hospitals will need to put in place teams to implement infection control practices in operation theatres, patient wards and out-patient departments”, he said.
 
What we notice is that more often with unnecessary medication, patients suffer and therefore weaning them out from drug over dose is another challenge. Now that the government has issued the national treatment guidelines for antimicrobial use based on scientific evidence, their review consistent with the already existing international norms is important. It is all the more pertinent to bring in a prescription audit and issue standard treatment guidelines for all diseases, he pointed out.