Resistance to common antibiotics rising among Indian patients

Resistance to commonly-used antibiotic clarithromycin is rising among Indian patients and that too at quite a fast pace, health experts have warned.

Clarithromycin is used to treat a wide variety of bacterial infections. This medication can also be used in combination with antiulcer medications to treat certain types of stomach ulcers.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), antibiotic resistance is one of the biggest threats to global health, food security and development today.

Sunil Sofat, Additional Director, Department of Interventional Cardiology (Adult) at Jaypee Hospital in Noida, said that every antibiotic medicine has its own mechanism to treat diseases.

“Yes, this is true that the resistance to clarithromycin is rising among the Indian patients and that too at quite a fast pace. There are multiple factors for the same but one of the major reasons behind it is self-medication,” Sofat told IANS. “In India, a huge population prefers to consume overthe-counter (OTC) drugs without even consulting a doctor. In the long run, this may make them resistant to most of the antibiotics including clarithromycin,” Sofat added.

In a recent study presented at United European Gastroenterology (UEG) Week Barcelona 2019, researchers have found that resistance to clarithromycin, one of the most established antimicrobials used to eradicate Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori), had increased from 9.9 per cent in 1998 to 21.6 per cent last year, with increases in resistance also seen for levofloxacin and metronidazole.

The study, which analysed 1,232 patients from 18 countries across Europe, investigated resistance to antibiotics regularly taken for Helicobacter pylori infection, a harmful bacterium associated with gastric ulcers, lymphoma and gastric cancer.