Kerala aims at 100% antibiotic literacy by December
By December this year, the State intends to conduct antibiotic awareness activities in all hospitals and local self-government institutions (LSGIs) and ensure that no antibiotics are dispensed anywhere in the State without a proper prescription, Health Minister Veena George said here on Tuesday.
She was releasing a booklet on the awareness activities on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and proper antibiotic use conducted by the Health department across all districts as part of World AMR Awareness Week, which was observed from November 18 to 24, 2024.
Some 395 LSGIs and 734 hospitals in the State had together conducted 2,852 AMR awareness programmes. About 404 private hospitals, 2,238 educational institutions, and 1,530 pharmacies had joined the AMR awareness initiative
The Antibiotic Literate Kerala campaign will aim at creating general public awareness on the importance of keeping drinking water and food free of antibiotic residues and how antibiotics should be consumed only as directed by a physician.
The campaign will also focus on making the public aware about the significance of disposing of unused or date-expired antibiotic drugs safely, ensuring that they do not pollute waterbodies or are not thrown carelessly into soil. To aid this, an initiative launched by the State Drugs Control department — nPROUD — to ensure the safe disposal of drugs will be scaled up across the State.
Despite the efforts at awareness creation, AMR awareness remains at about 40% in the State, multiple studies have proved. Also, the participation of private health sector institutions in AMR-prevention activities has not come up to the desired level.
The ambitious goal of 100% antibiotic literacy can be achieved only if the State gives renewed attention to private health sector engagement. Thus, this year, all professional medical associations like the Indian Academy of Paediatrics, Association of Physicians of India, and the Indian Medical Association have pledged to focus more on improving private health sector engagement
AMR is a silent pandemic and hence raising awareness and understanding of AMR and promotion of best practices among all One Health stakeholders is important to reduce the emergence and spread of drug-resistant infections.
The general public should thus understand that the rational and judicious use of antibiotics is important to prevent the emergence of antibiotic-resistant strains of pathogens. Antibiotics should be bought and consumed only when the doctor prescribes them and care should be taken that the course of medicine as instructed by the doctor is completed by the patient, the Health department says.
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