Studies have shown that almost 16,290 million doses of antibiotics were sold in India in the year 2020, and throughout all these years, there has been no decrease in the number. For the seasonal flu, covid 19 variants, and other normal flu and cold, antibiotics are used for a number of purposes. Now the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has updated the doctors to mention the reason for suggesting the antibiotics. The patient should know why he or she is taking the antibiotics and how it is going to work in their body. Antibiotics have a large market in India and are easily available through any chemist shops also. The health ministry has ordered the sale of antibiotics without a healthcare practitioner’s prescription should be stopped and they should sell the antibiotics with the prescription only. Without knowing the purpose of antibiotics people are largely consuming these for other purposes also and this situation later creates an issue of antibiotic resistance. India is facing the issue of the resistance of antibiotics in the patient’s bodies. “Resistance to antibiotics means that the drug which is supposed to be working against a particular group of microorganisms is not able to work. So, the organisms are resistant to the effect of the medication because of undergoing chromosome changes” explains Rajiv Dang ( senior medical officer and HOD Internal Medicine and Medical Director, Delhi ). Anti-microbial resistance is one of the top global issues in public health and this will be a flagship initiative from the side of Health Ministry.
