A Guide Endocrinologist, Dr Grace Senbanjo, has urged Nigerians to desist from self-medication and the indiscriminate use of antibiotics to curb the rising risk of antimicrobial resistance.
Senbanjo, additionally a Guide Doctor at Lagos State College Educating Hospital, gave the recommendation in an interview with the Information Company of Nigeria on Tuesday in Lagos.
She expressed concern over the excessive and alarming fee of antibiotics abuse, self-medication, and the usage of unprescribed antibiotics in Nigeria, describing it as a serious risk to the nation’s healthcare system.
“The usage of antibiotics and not using a prescription from certified medical consultants is among the main causes of antimicrobial resistance throughout the nation, resulting in extreme infections, problems, longer hospital stays, and elevated mortality,” she mentioned.
Senbanjo defined that AMR happens when micro organism, viruses, fungi, and parasites now not reply to antimicrobial brokers. She added that drug resistance renders antibiotics and different antimicrobial brokers ineffective, making infections tough or inconceivable to deal with and rising the danger of illness unfold, extreme sickness, and demise.
“There’s an rising downside of antimicrobial resistance, whereby antibiotics are now not efficient for the therapy of infectious illnesses for which they have been particularly designed.
“This is the reason a physician could admit a affected person and administer a specific antibiotic that ordinarily ought to treatment the affected person’s ailment, but it surely is not going to work.
“Antibiotics, referred to as antibacterials, are medication that destroy or decelerate the expansion of micro organism. They’re meant to deal with particular forms of micro organism and can’t be interchanged to deal with any an infection apart from the one they have been designed for.
“However at this time, they’re indiscriminately used to deal with numerous illnesses, which has led to resistance and made antibiotics ineffective towards focused infections,” Senbanjo mentioned.
She burdened the significance of correct examination and analysis by certified medical practitioners earlier than prescribing antibiotics.
“Earlier than prescribing antibiotics, each the affected person and the drug ought to endure a tradition check in a laboratory to determine the causative organism and decide the precise antibiotic that may fight it,” she mentioned.
The endocrinologist decried the frequent follow of utilizing antibiotics to deal with viral infections akin to colds, flu, coughs, and sore throats and not using a medical prescription or laboratory affirmation. She additionally warned towards incomplete antibiotic therapy.
“Lots of people cease taking antibiotics after three days as a result of they really feel higher. That is drug abuse and really unsuitable. It will possibly make the antibiotic ineffective within the individual’s physique, such that when taken once more for a similar ailment, it is not going to work.
“The traditional prescription period for antibiotics is normally seven days, no matter how the affected person feels,” she mentioned.
Senbanjo urged the Federal Authorities and regulatory authorities to accentuate efforts towards efficient regulation and enforcement of insurance policies on the use and sale of medicine within the nation.
She additionally referred to as for elevated public consciousness campaigns by way of tv, radio, and social media to teach residents on the correct use of antibiotics and different medication.
(NAN)
