Hailed as one of the greatest achievements of modern medicine for their ability to cure life-threatening diseases, antibiotics are fast losing their efficacy due to constant misuse.
The indiscriminate use of these medicines has led to the emergence of deadly bacterial strains which do not respond to even the most powerful antibiotics. To draw attention to this growing problem, the Emerging Antimicrobial Resistance Society (EARS), a non-profit organisation, will launch a weeklong nationwide campaign from November 16 to 23 for the first time in India.
Termed as the “Awareness Week on Antibiotic Knowledge and Education” (AWAKE), this campaign seeks to avert one of the world’s “gravest public health threats” by promoting the rational use of antibiotics among doctors, clinicians, pharmacists and the general public through a series of activities.
The campaign would be conducted simultaneously in six cities, including Chandigarh-Mohali-Panchkula (tricity), New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad. EARS will organise awareness marches in all these cities, urging people to use antibiotics intelligently and the ways to control antimicrobial resistance (AMR).