Carbapenems : Environment for UPSC Exams
Carbapenems : Environment for UPSC Exams
- The Carbapenems are antibiotics used for the treatment of infections known or suspected to be caused by multidrug-resistant (MDR) bacteria.
- Resistance to antibiotics has been rising in India, mainly because of their indiscriminate use to treat even routine infections.
- Earlier this year, economist Lord Jim O’Neill had said that India’s mounting drug-resistant infections could claim a million lives by 2050.
- A study published by Indian researchers recently in the Journal of Evidence Based Medicine and Healthcare described colistin- and carbapenem-resistant K. pneumoniae in newborns diagnosed with sepsis at a tertiary hospital in Jamshedpur.
- A much-needed public awareness campaign to highlight the dangers of misuse and irrational use of antibiotics was recently launched by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare Called ‘Medicines with the Red Line’.
- A report (August 2014) in the journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases, said that in 2010, India consumed 13 billion units of antibiotics, the highest in the world. Between 2005 and 2009, consumption shot up by 40 per cent.