New Delhi: A range of antibiotics – from life-saving, high-end varieties to the more mundane – available over the counter now have 20 per cent to 100 per cent resistance, according to Sayan Chakrabarty, an infectious diseases physician, AMRI Hospitals.
“Lives are being lost quite often since multiple antibiotics now have 60 per cent resistance. Almost all major ones have some degree of resistance. And not only chicken; fish and vegetables, too, pass on antibiotics to us,” said Chakrabarty.
An internal medicine consultant pointed out that lives are lost every winter, when bacteria and viruses spread rapidly. “Almost a fourth of hospital deaths result from antibiotic resistance,” he said.
According to Indranil Samanta, assistant professor at the West Bengal University of Animal and Fishery Science, “commensal bacteria” in human bodies develop resistance.
“These classes of bacteria cannot be killed later using the same set of antibiotics. These can even lead to slower wound-healing after surgery. Universities are working proactively and holding awareness camps for poultry farms. The awareness has increased in the commercial sector but the backyard sector or unorganised sector is largely unaware of the dangers,” Samanta said.
