Health experts have warned that if nothing is done, our health security is at stake because of antibiotics misuse.
From being miracle lifesavers, antibiotics are becoming ineffective against resistant infections, which can affect anyone, of any age, in any country.
Antibiotics or antimicrobials are drugs that are used to treat diseases caused by germs such as bacteria, virus and parasites.
Currently it is estimated that 700,000 people die of resistant infections every year and without aggressive action to combat the resistance, the number will rise to 10million lives by the year 2050.
Antibiotics resistance occurs when bacteria become resistant to the active ingredients in these medicines.
These resistant may infect humans and animals, making infections like, urinary tract infections, septic wounds, sexually transmitted, tuberculosis and gonorrhoea harder to treat.
Speaking to New Vision, Dr Noel Mategyero Aine, a principal regulatory officer, international affairs at National Drug Authority acknowledged that the problem is growing and getting worse in Uganda.
“The reasons for the rising antibiotic resistance, include over-prescribing, misuse by patients who don’t follow the advice of healthcare professionals, overuse in farming, poor infection control. For most farmers when their animals are sick, they follow a trial-and-error approach without visiting a veterinary doctor or taking samples to the laboratory,” Dr Mategyero said. [image_library_tag ffcba31f-1fff-4f92-9e6f-515cbe272c5c 703×422 height=”422″ width=”703″ alt=” Makerere University vice-chancellor, Prof. Barnabas Nawangwe” ] Makerere University vice-chancellor, Prof. Barnabas Nawangwe
In Livestock, Dr Mategyero noted that the bacteria can remain on meat. If the meat is not handled or cooked properly, the bacteria can spread to humans.
To combat the misuse of antibiotics, Makerere University with collaboration with National Drug Authority launched an antimicrobial resistance app that will help in monitoring and regulating antibiotics consumption.
In an interview, Dr Lawrence Mugisha, the principal investigator in the research project titled developing a monitoring system for quantifying and mapping antimicrobials used in livestock farming in Uganda, said that antibiotics resistance is one of the top three challenges faced by mankind today after climate change and terrorism.
“We need to combat the misuse of antimicrobials which is fueling drug resistance and allowing long-treatable diseases to become killers. We need to understand what antimicrobials are consumed to curb the spread of drug resistance,” Dr Mugisha, who is also an associate professor in the department of wildlife and Aquatic Animal resources at the College of Veterinary medicine, Makerere University.
“Through surveillance, the country will be able detect the emergence of antibiotic resistance and collect the data on prevalence and antibiotics use necessary to guide patient treatment, identify populations at risk, inform policy development and assess the impact of interventions,” Dr Mugisha said
While launching the app, the vice chancellor, Prof Barnabas Nawangwe, said that the data which will be collected by the app, will be used to inform the choice and implementation of antibiotics stewardship interventions at national level with the aim of conserving and sustaining effectiveness of existing and new antibiotic agents.
“The app will be able to capture importation data, sales data and purchase data in real time and display it on IT dashboard in different usage formats accessible to regulators, veterinary drug importers and distributors and farmers,” Prof Nawangwe said.
To avoid drug resistance the public was advised to seek advice from a health professional before taking antibiotics.
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