Antibiotics for Covid-19 cases worsen India’s crisis
Bloomberg
May 26 |
Updated on
May 26, 2021
Fear of missing a secondary infection and lack of specific therapy leading to overprescription: study
Excessive use of the world’s most potent antibiotics has stoked drug-resistant infections in India for years. Now the country’s Covid crisis has put the calamity into hyperdrive.
A first look at how many patients hospitalised during India’s first coronavirus wave also developed bacterial and fungal infections found that a small but alarming proportion harbour germs that resist multiple drugs.
Doctors battling to save lives amid a dearth of effective treatments are turning to the medicines they have on hand often antibiotics that aren’t used in other countries for Covid-19. What’s more, the chaos of overrun hospitals means staff can’t always take precautions to ensure infections don’t spread from one patient to the next.