Faced with the scary prospect of losing lives to simple infections in the future, India is finally waking up to the dangers of reckless antibiotic use. The Indian Medical Association, a pan-India voluntary organization of doctors, has launched a nationwide awareness programme on overuse of these live-savers, a practice that has led to emergence of drug-resistant organisms. IMA will also ask fellow practitioners to avoid unnecessary prescriptions such as recommending antibiotics for patients with fever and cold which are generally caused by viral infections.
Until recently, as older antibiotics have become less useful due to the spread of drug resistant bacteria, new antibiotics have come along to take their place. But the drug development pipeline for new antibiotics has been drying out. New antibiotics have come to market in recent years, but any sense of progress this provides is…
