Health

IAS Parliament 5 years

KEY POINTS

· Given its burden of infectious disease, India stands to lose the most from anti-microbial resistance (AMR).

Sources of AMR

1. Overuse of antibiotics by human beings

2. Overuse in the veterinary sector

3. Environmental antibiotic contamination due to pharmaceutical and hospital discharge.

Steps taken

· To tackle the first source, India classified important antibiotics under Schedule H1 of the Drugs and Cosmetics Rules 1945.

· Under the Rules, drugs specified under Schedule H and X are required to be sold by retail on the prescription of a Registered Medical Practitioner only.

· Even then, Schedule H1 drugs are freely available in pharmacies, with state drug-controllers unable to enforce the law widely.

· To tackle the second source, India’s 2017 National Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance did talk about restricting antibiotic use as growth promoters.

· But the lack of progress on this front allows companies to sell last-resort drugs to farmers over the counter.

· To tackle the third source, the same national action plan spoke about regulating antibiotics levels in discharge from pharmaceutical firms.

· For instance, Hyderabad’s pharmaceutical industry has been pumping massive amounts of antibiotics into local lakes, rivers and sewers.

· This has led to an explosion in resistance genes in these waterbodies.

· Still, India is yet to introduce standards for antibiotics in waste water, which means antibiotic discharge in sewage is not even being monitored regularly.