Pharmacies warned on antibiotics
MBABANE – Government has warned private pharmacies against giving antibiotics over the counter to patients, without a doctor’s prescription.
Antibiotic medications are widely used in the treatment and prevention of various infections. Currently, the country is sitting at 93 per cent resistance to Penicillin and Amoxicillin, the two most common antibiotics. It was stated that these were being abused for common infections, including mild coughs.
The Ministry of Health raised concerns over the ongoing abuse of antibiotics in the country due to the lack of regulations in place that will control such practices.
Assistant Director Pharmaceutical in the Ministry of Health Thuli Magagula, said they understood that there were people who sought assistance from private pharmacies, hence they were pleading with the employees to work with them by adhering to the regulations that the medicines should not be given without prescriptions.
Magagula said the abuse of antibiotics may lead to resistance for the patients. “When giving medication to patients, you may not know the exact diagnosis, whether or not it is an infection,” she said.
She highlighted that there were five top antibiotics which were found to be in circulation across the country. These are Cotrimax (bactrim), Penicillin, Tetracyclines, Nitromidazole derivatives and Macrolides, which were all used for upper respiratory infections.
According to the assistant director, the supposed misuse of antibiotics gave them limited choices to treat patients and they might need much more expensive medicines to counter the resistance. She said those who were likely to have resistance were children and males. She said the suspicion was the health-seeking behaviour among males who visited hospitals when their conditions were at an advanced stage.
Children
Magagula said when the sickness had progressed, they needed to use stronger medicines, including the antibiotics. Furthermore, she stated that for infants and children, they were most likely to be exposed to antimicrobials.
According to Magagula, it was disheartening to note that the use of antibiotics was not in a rationale manner, resulting in resistance among many patients who were given the medicine. She stated that these were antibiotics which were used to treat common infections.
This, she said, was becoming a serious concern for the ministry and they were working together with other ministries on the issue. “Antimicrobials are used in animals as well as the environment, especially with plants,” Magagula said.
She said they also realised that the disposal of the medication was also not conducted in a proper manner, resulting in it going into water system, hence the need for those working on the environment to partner with them. The assistant director pleaded with members of the public to work with them in terms of seeking information and becoming aware that the antibiotics needed to be prescribed only by doctors.
Dr Nondumiso Ncube, a health specialist with ICAP, said there was a need to educate members of the public that it was fine to visit a health facility and leave without getting antibiotics because the body easily developed resistance to them.
Dr Ncube said doctors were not supposed to give into the pressure from the patients as some felt uncomfortable to leave a health facility without getting the antibiotics, especially when treating sexually transmitted infections. She said it was important to remember to only take antibiotics when they had been prescribed by a doctor who had also conducted a pathology test to see that indeed the patient had a bacterial infection.