Shawdesh Desk:

The over the counter sale of antibiotics will have to be stopped to resist the antimicrobial resistance in Bangladesh, experts said.

They said the antimicrobial resistance has turned into alarming in the country which may affect the human health seriously here.

The experts came up with the statement while addressing a seminar titled ‘Antimicrobial resistance problem; together we resist it’ at a city hotel on Sunday.

Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), its Communicable Disease Control (CDC) unit, USAID Medicines, Technologies, and Pharmaceutical Services (MTaPS) and Bangladesh Health Reporters Forum jointly organised the event.

At the seminar, the experts also said serious risk has been created due to uncontrolled and misuse of the antibiotics in the country.

They further said the antibiotic drugs are losing effectiveness due to misuse and excessive use in many cases which is creating antibiotic resistance.

Describing the misuse of antibiotics, DGHS director general Prof Dr ABM Khurshid Alam, lamented that many people are taking antibiotics without prescription even in normal health complications like mild viral fever.

“It is one of the main reasons behind creating antibiotic resistance I human body. So, over the counter sale of antibiotics and less than minimum course of the drugs should be stopped,” he added.

USAID Global health security agenda (GHSA) specialist Dr Abul Kalam Azad, DGHS additional director general Prof Dr Ahmedul Kabir, DGHS director (CDC) Prof Dr Nazmul Islam, Bangladesh Micorbioloogy Association president Dr Sanya Tahmina, IEDCR chief scientific officerDr Zakir Hossain Habib, Fleming Fund Country Grants Bangladesh team lead Prof Nitish Debnath and USAID MTaPS programme team lead Dr SM Zahid spoke at the programme among others.