Parliamentary Panel Flags Antibiotic Overuse, Calls for Urgent Curriculum Reforms to Tackle AMR Crisis

New Delhi: Taking cognisance of the overuse of antibiotics leading to Anti-microbial resistance in people, a Parliamentary Health Committee has recommended making "suitable interventions" in the medical education curriculum to spread awareness among doctors on the ill effects of overuse of antibiotics.

The Department-reated Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health and Family Welfare recommended in its one hundred sixty third report on demands for grants 2025-2026 of the Health Department that immediate steps were required to control the trend of overuse of antibiotics as long-term effects of the drug resistance will ultimately cripple the health of the citizens of the country.

Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that considering the emerging threats of Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR), which is now one of the top global public health threats facing humanity, the National Medical Commission had released a module for Medical students, Doctors (Residents. Faculty, Medical officers etc.) and allied health professionals (Nurses, Pharmacist, Technicians and other allied health professionals) and administrators.

It is estimated that bacterial AMR was directly responsible for 1.27 million global deaths in 2019 and 4.95 million deaths were associated with drug-resistant infections. AMR puts many of the gains of modern medicine at risk and threatens the effective prevention and treatment of infections caused by resistant microbes, resulting in prolonged illness and a greater risk of death. Treatment failures also lead to longer periods of infectivity and the prohibitive high cost of second-line drugs may result in failure to treat these diseases in many individuals.

Also Read: Diagnostic Tests Must before prescribing Antibiotics to patients: NMC guidelines for doctors

In its report, the Department-reated Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health and Family Welfare also raised the issue of the growing menace of anti-microbial resistance and sought to know whether there was a need for National Anti-Microbial guidelines. The DHR stated that ICMR released guidelines for antimicrobial use in 2019 and for management for carbapenem resistant organisms in 2022.

Accordingly, the panel recommended, "The Committee observes that there is rampant usage of antibiotics leading to Anti-microbial resistance. It is a matter of great concern that rapid/massive use of antibiotics has resulted in a countrywide problem of microbial/drug resistance. Nowadays, Antibiotics are misused, abused and overused. Immediate steps to control this trend need to be taken as the long-term effects of the drug resistance will cripple the health of the citizens of the country. To restore our natural immune system and our gut health indiscriminate usage of antibiotics needs to be stopped."

"Suitable interventions in the curriculum of medical colleges need to be done to sensitise our doctors on the ill effects of overuse of antibiotics. Therefore, the Committee recommends DHR, in tandem with Ministry/Department concerned to formulate National Anti-Biotic Policy covering all aspects of misuse of Antibiotics and its prevention and with the intent of restoring the Nations Immune Health," it further mentioned in the report.

Earlier, releasing the National Action Plan on AMR Module for Prescribers 2024, NMC had advised doctors to treat patients with antibiotics in the presence of diagnostic reports and cases of severity. "The decision to treat with antibiotics should be made by the presence of severity and laboratory report of sputum and culture examination," the Commission stated in the module, adding that the empiric antibiotic therapy must be limited to seriously ill patients.

Recently, during a Rajya Sabha Session, the Union Minister of State in the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Shri Prataprao Jadhav, announced that 50 state medical colleges across 33 States/UTs were currently part of the National AMR Surveillance Network (NARS-Net). He further informed that India enrolled in the Global AMR Surveillance System (GLASS) in 2017 and has submitted the National AMR surveillance data from NARS-Net to GLASS since 2018.

Also Read: Initiatives to Enhance AMR Surveillance: Health Minister informs Parliament