We are still in the fight against the virus SARS_COV-2, the whole world is at a kind of stalemate, and there has been massive collateral damage. Several thousand SMEs and even big companies are already out of their businesses, and some more to have a similar destiny. 

 

In a country like Nepal, Tourism and Foreign Employment is the basis of livelihood, going to face the economic issue if traditional agriculture and domestic tourism are not reviving immediately to push the sudden decline of the source of income of locals. Remember, it was just a little virus that caused such enormous devastation. 

 

There are several million viruses in the world, and possibly similar numbers are unknown to us. Since the virus mutates very fast as their character, it is almost next to impossible to keep track of them as long as they do not bother us. There are quite a few epidemics of viruses, and we have vaccine and prophylaxis way outs for some.

 

Leaving the virus aside, for now, this time, I am willing to get your attention to another scary situation would be appearing shortly- Drug Resistance Bacteria. The drug-resistant bacterial infection seems to be challenging as we have a lack of new antibiotics to contain those drug-resistant infections. As per the recent WHO news release, there are as less as 60 products in development, out of which just 50 are antibiotics, and 10 are biologics. The most critical bacterial challenges would come from Gram-negative bacteria. The candidate antibiotics would take several years before we can use them in humans. Hence, we need to be too rational while using antimicrobial products.

 

Overuse and misuse of antibiotics are the leading causes of antimicrobial resistance. 

 Pharmaceutical industries are too pushy about using antibiotics for the benefit of their business. We urge every government must teach its people to live a healthy life. Nepal and countries like ours are at more risk of infections, and as a result of more rampant use of antibiotics, eventually, more drug resistance cases would soon be identified.

The use of broad-spectrum antibiotics to treat minor infection, without finding the root cause or diagnosis of a pathogen is the culprit contributing to drug resistance. Self-medicating, overuse and underuse of antimicrobials are other factors pushing the whole human race in the bacterial attack. 

Medical professionals must bring the ethical and medical best practices into their daily routine by optimizing the diagnostics laboratory making sure whether or not or which one to use to treat the patient. 

Our foods are too dependent on animal products, whereas it should have been all-time best a plant-based diet. The very reason for this is, most livestock are with the flow of antibiotics.

 

Antimicrobial Stewardship Programs are for the noble cause of preserving the strength of antibiotics against the bacteria. Each one of us must be aware of this initiative that helps protect ourselves from the threat of pathogenic bacteria. We all know viruses are more powerful to create epidemic and even a pandemic like what we have been facing caused by the SARS-COV_2 virus. However, bacteria remain active all the time, and they are more connected with personal hygiene, sanitation, food, and potable water. 

Sometimes it is difficult to differentiate whether a bacterial or viral infection, in such cases, medical professionals need to use laboratory science. As explained earlier, using antibiotics too much or too little or for the wrong reason may change the bacteria, and the same antibiotics don’t work against them is called antibiotic resistance. Lately, we have been observing raised cases of antibiotic resistant bacteria in the samples received in the lab for the Culture and Sensitivity study.

Antibiotic resistance has posed a challenge to each one of us, and especially young children, people of old age, and immune-compromised people. The Antibiotic Stewardship program needs to reach each clinician, to enable them to understand the proper use of the antibiotics to get the optimum benefit out of every use of antibiotics to the patient. The government mechanism of every country should internalize the importance of the initiative, for the greater good of global health.

 

For any program to become successful, there must be a firm commitment and accountability of leadership. A well-communicated protocol among the medical service provider for optimizing the use of the antibiotics makes the system more effective. Keeping close track of activities creates a favorable situation for continual improvement and a real schematic Antimicrobial Stewardship. 

 

Bacteria become resistant to the antibiotic, not the patient (including animals under treatment), and the bacteria, if they infect, remain harder to treat. So we must change our narrative: “this antibiotic is resistant to me” is a wrong statement. “I got infected with resistant bacteria” is the appropriate version to understand the problem. 

So our cumulative effort shall be to discourage the microbes from developing resistance to available antibiotics.

 

This new year 2021, may you all choose a very healthy way of living and remember to use the right antibiotic only when it is clinically proven necessary.