Rise in abuse of antibiotics creating huge public health concern
The misuse and abuse of antibiotics are not only causing antibacterial resistance but also making treatment of certain types of diseases ineffective and posing major health threats.
Health experts have warned that a growing number of infections such as pneumonia, tuberculosis, gonorrhoea, and salmonellosis (an infection with salmonella bacteria, commonly caused by contaminated food or water) are becoming harder to treat as the antibiotics used to treat them are becoming less effective.
The issue of abuse of antibiotics is of concern because it is very common to see people using antibiotics such as tetracycline, ampicillin, amoxicillin and metronidazole to treat stomachaches, waist pains and other illnesses based purely on self-diagnosis and misinformation.
It is also common practice for people to get these drugs at over-the-counter (OTC) drug facilities, at markets and transport terminals across Ghana.
Antibiotics are medicines used to treat bacterial infections and resistance is said to occur, when a bacteria changes in response to the use and misuse of these medicines.
This group of medications are prescribed for use against a host of bacterial infections such as pelvic inflammatory infections, pneumonia, urinary tract infections, sepsis, cholera, typhoid fever, vaginosis, infections of the intestines, eyes, ears, skin, genital, chest and respiratory infections, meningitis and sexually transmitted infections among others.
They are however generally restricted and prescription drugs and not to be dispensed by OTC drug outlets but are rather sold at pharmacies.
In an interview with ghanabusinessnews.com, Mr. Alex Noi, a pharmacist at Caplets Pharmacy at Nungua in the Greater Accra region, said most people rely on other people’s experiences and use these antibiotics to treat their own diseases and conditions.
He explained that one reason why people abuse and misuse antibiotics is that they depend on pieces of advice picked from people close to them who freely share their own personal experiences with antibiotic use.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has already confirmed that antibacterial resistance is on the rise, specifically in low-and middle-income countries, causing significant deaths and ill health.
A recent WHO Global Antimicrobial Resistance and Use Surveillance System Report has confirmed this rise and has indicated that vulnerable populations such as children and neonates are disproportionately affected by antibiotic-resistant infections in these countries, with pneumonia and bloodstream infections among the major causes of childhood mortality under the age of five.
The global body adds that approximately 30 per cent of newborns with sepsis die due to bacterial infections resistant to first-line antibiotics and has noted the need for new antibacterial treatments, adding that it is an urgent matter.
“Where antibiotics can be bought for human or animal use without a prescription, the emergence and spread of resistance is made worse,” the WHO said.
The organisation has also recently revealed that none of the 43 antibiotics that are currently in clinical development sufficiently addresses the problem of drug resistance in the world’s most dangerous bacteria.
Adding that almost all the new antibiotics that have been brought to the market in recent decades are variations of antibiotic drugs classes that had been discovered by the 1980s.
According to the WHO, in countries without standard treatment guidelines, antibiotics are often over-prescribed by health workers and veterinarians and over-used by the public. “Without urgent action, we are heading for a post-antibiotic era, in which common infections and minor injuries can once again kill,” it added.
Several OTC medicine outlets all over Ghana are selling antibiotics, a worrying trend because these facilities are only licensed to dispense medications classified as class C drugs which include simple painkillers such as paracetamol, cough medications, multivitamins, dewormers and antacids.
According to Mr Noi, more education is needed to whip OTC medicine practitioners in line to enable them do the right thing and stop dispensing these antibiotics.
He said both the Pharmacy Council and the Pharmaceutical Society of Ghana should be leading this education.
He acknowledged that the Council as a regulator is challenged in monitoring and regulating these OTC drug facilities because of issues such as insufficient personnel and other logistics.
This is made worse by the fact that there are several OTC outlets across the country and even though the Council usually goes around checking on their activities, it is not an easy task due to their numbers.
The issue of antibiotic resistance is no doubt a huge public health problem and health experts have said that this resistance leads to longer hospital stays, higher medical costs and increased mortality.
The world is still failing to develop desperately needed antibacterial treatments, despite growing awareness of the urgent threat of antibiotic resistance, the WHO has, for instance, It indicates further that, antibiotics resistance are part of a wider problem covering the broad subject of antimicrobial resistance.
Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites change over time and no longer respond to medicines, making infections harder to treat and increasing the risk of disease spread, severe illness and death. As a result, medicines become ineffective and infections persist in the body, increasing the risk of spread to others.
In 2019, the WHO declared AMR as one of the top 10 global public health threats facing humanity.
The UN body has been leading the response to AMR over the past two decades and its efforts led to the approval of the Global Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance by the Sixty-eighth World Health Assembly in May 2015.
By Eunice Menka
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