Saudi Gazette

IF you are suffering from cough and want to feel better quickly, do not go for antibiotics because your attempt to cure fast from a nasty viral infection may kill or slow down the growth of useful bacteria in your body. This was what pharmaceutical experts taking part in a campaign as part of the ongoing Global Antibiotic Awareness Week advised patients in Jeddah.

The campaign is line in with World Health Organization’s call for action against antibiotic resistance.

The global awareness week focuses on improving antimicrobial prescription practices among doctors, educating patients and the public on the safe use of antibiotics, and watching the bacterial resistance progression.

The Ministry of Health launched a five-day awareness campaign, which will conclude on Thursday in Jeddah. Pharmaceutical care teams have been visiting all major hospitals in Jeddah to create awareness about the undesirable side effects of antibiotics.

The teams met with patients at King Abdulaziz Hospital, King Fahd Hospital, East Jeddah Hospital, King Abdullah Medical Complex and Thaghr Hospital and explained to them about the impact and complications of antibiotics, according to a ministry release.

The teams also distributed the awareness booklets published in Arabic and in English among the patients.

Antibiotics, developed in 1940s, are not “smart bombs” that can selectively target and destroy bad bacteria and leave alone good cells of the human body around them. On the other hand, they wipe out whole populations of bacteria — both good and bad — including those that are beneficial to the body.

During this process, some bacteria become resistant to antibiotics enabling them to survive the adverse condition, thereby reducing the efficacy of the medicines. Different antibiotics are used to prevent infections in surgical patients, protect cancer patients and to treat people with compromised immune systems.

However, once-treatable infections are becoming difficult to cure due to antibiotic resistance because of over-use or abuse of antibiotics, raising costs to healthcare facilities and patient mortality. Many pathogens are resistant to more than one antibiotic, and the new, last-resort antibiotics are expensive and often out of reach for those who need them. Common bacteria such as Klebsiella and Escherichia coli have developed resistance to even “last resort antibiotics” like carbapenems, which fail to cure patients.

While antibiotic resistance is everyone’s problem, keeping antibiotics effective is everyone’s responsibility. They must be used in a responsible manner by avoiding antibiotics to treat common viral infections, such as common cold or flu or diarrhea, taking antibiotics correctly and only after proper diagnosis of infection by a qualified medical practitioner, avoiding self-medications, avoiding storing of antibiotics for future use and practicing good hygiene, according to the health experts.