European study finds, the pharmacy industry in Hyderabad is polluting the environment with antimicrobials.
What are the key findings of the study?
The pollution contributes to a rise in drug-resistant infections, a new study published in the journal Infection alleges.
Drug resistance in India is the sheer number of neonatal deaths attributed to it, an estimated 58,000 every year, followed by hospital-acquired infections that fail to respond to last-resort treatment.
The crisis of drug resistance is exemplified by the spread of drug-resistant tuberculosis in India and the disease could spread to the international community.
More significantly, the study claims that all samples contained antimicrobials in concentrations far exceeding maximum permissible environmental concentrations of these drugs.
For long now low-level exposure to antimicrobial drugs in the environment has been feared for inducing resistance.
While industrial units can claim there is no chemical discharge, the water bodies continue to receive inflows clearly loaded with chemicals, this is miserable here.
Now it’s clear that not only water bodies are getting polluted, the bacteria are also getting polluted.
If this tends to continue microorganisms will evolve into drug resistive and spread across the nation which will be a global threat.
What is the reaction of the Industry?
Drug manufacturers in Hyderabad maintain that it does not sufficiently link antibiotic resistance to pharma effluents and that they comply with Pollution Control Board norms.
University of Hyderabad (UoH) scientists have carried out a study commissioned by the Bulk Drug Manufacturers Association (India) that shows multidrug-resistant bacteria can also be found in areas where no pharma units exist.
As it looked only for bacteria, the UoH study could not respond to specific allegations made by the Infection study of drug residues in high concentrations around specific pharma units.
Industry representatives say they will commission another study before responding to this accusation.
What is the way forward?
Claiming that Indian authorities have not done enough, the study also calls upon European regulators to ensure enforcement of regulations during the manufacturing process.
It is important, that government should take needful action for prevention, rather than seeking complex methods for cure.
