According to recent reports, the Central Drug Regulator did not approve more than 47% of the antibiotic formulations used in India’s private sector in 2019. In a study that was published in The Lancet Regional Health-Southeast Asia, these shocking statistics were revealed. Senthil Ganesh and Sakthivel Selvaraj from the Public Health Foundation of India, New Delhi, along with Shaffi Fazaludeen Koya, Veronika J. Wirtz, Sandro Galea, and Peter C. Rockers from the Department of Epidemiology, Boston University School of Public Health, undertook the study.
The report also discovered that Azithromycin which is the go-to antibiotic for common cold and flu was the most consumed antibiotic formulation in India which was taken by almost 7.6 percent of people in the country in 2019. The Indian populace followed suit, taking enormous quantities of the Cefixime 200mg tablet in 2019. More than 6.5 percent of Indians used the drug, making it the second-most-taken antibiotic in India in 2019 behind azithromycin.
Antibiotic resistance has been observed in the majority of Indians, which can lead to more serious problems in the future, according to the study’s authors, who also noted in the journal that the inappropriate use of antibiotics and the fact that most people do not take prescribed antibiotics but instead rely on hearsay is also cause for concern.
They estimated that in 2019, 5,071 million (10.4 DDD/1,000/day) defined daily doses—the anticipated daily average maintenance dose for a medicine in adults—were used in total. This indicates that it exceeds the WHO-recommended limit of 10DDD (Defined Daily Dose) per 1000 people in a country per day.
