47 Percent of Antibiotics Used in India are Not Approved, Claims Report

NEW DELHI: It has been reported recently that more than 47 percent of the Antibiotic formulations used in India's private sector in 2019 were not approved by the Central Drug Regulator. 

These startling facts came to light in a study published in The Lancet Regional Health-Southeast Asia.

The study was conducted by Shaffi Fazaludeen Koya, Veronika J. Wirtz, Sandro Galea, and Peter C. Rockers from the Department of Epidemiology, Boston University School of Public Health, along with Senthil Ganesh and Sakthivel Selvaraj from the Public Health Foundation of India, New Delhi.

The research also found that Azithromycin which is the go-to antibiotic for common cold and flu was the most consumed antibiotic formulation in India which was consumed by almost 7.6 percent of people in the country in 2019. Followed by it the Indian population in 2019 also popped the Cefixime 200mg tablet in large numbers as more than 6.5 percent of Indians popped the pill making it the second most popped Antibiotic pill in 2019 after Azithromycin in India. 

The authors of the study also noted in the journal that the inappropriate use of Antibiotics and most people do not take prescribed antibiotics and go with hearsay which is also a cause of concern as antibiotic resistance is been seen in most Indians which can in the future call for bigger trouble. 

"Largely unrestricted over-the-counter sales of most antibiotics, manufacturing, and marketing of many FDC and overlap in regulatory powers between national and state-level agencies complicate antibiotics availability, sales, and consumption in the country," the researchers said in a statement. 

The total defined daily dose --- the assumed average maintenance dose per day for a drug in adults --- consumed in 2019 was 5,071 million (10.4 DDD/1,000/day), they said. This means that it is higher than the WHO prescribed limit of 10DDD(Defined Daily Dose) per 1000 inhabitants in a country per day. 

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