MELBOURNE: About 57,000 newborn babies in India die annually due to drug-resistant sepsis, according to a study which found that the increased use of over-the-counter antibiotics without prescriptions is leading to the spread of superbug infections worldwide.
The study highlights the need for better enforcement of laws in the global fight against superbugs.
The study, published in The Journal of Infection, showed that antibiotics the most frequently prescribed medicine worldwide.
Antibiotic resistance is a major global health threat which accounts for more than two million infections and 23,000 deaths annually in the US, researchers found.
Between 2000 and 2010, consumption of antibiotics increased globally from 50 billion to 70 billion standard units. Majority of overall increase in consumption occurred in Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, the study found.
“Reliable estimates of the burden of antibiotic-resistant infections in developing countries are lacking but it is believed to cause many more deaths in these countries,” said Emmanuel Adewuyi, from Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Australia.
“In India, for example, about 57,000 neonatal sepsis deaths occurring annually are due to antibiotic-resistant infections,” he added.
Global increase was driven in part by economic growth and access to antibiotics. Pooled proportion of non-prescription supply of antibiotics in community pharmacies was 62 per cent, researchers said.
South America has the highest incidence of non-prescription supply of antibiotics in community pharmacies.
“We searched global databases for studies published from 2000 to 2017 which reported on the frequency of non-prescription sale and supply of antibiotics in community pharmacies worldwide,” said Adewuyi.
“Studies from 24 countries were analysed and to our alarm we discovered that antibiotics are frequently supplied without prescription in many countries,” he said.
“This overuse of antibiotics could facilitate the development and spread of antibiotic resistance. Antibiotic resistance accounts for more than two million infections and 23,000 deaths annually in the US, and around 25,000 deaths in Europe each year,” Adewuyi said.
Of the 24 countries included in the study, only Thailand did not classify antibiotics as prescription only, yet the supply of antibiotics with a prescription was commonplace in all.
“The majority of these antibiotics being supplied without prescription were for the treatment of disease conditions that were largely acute and self-limited, such as upper respiratory tract infections and gastroenteritis,” Adewuyi said.
“Many were also broad-spectrum antibiotics like amoxicillin, azithromycin and others which increase the risk of the development of difficult-to-treat infections like the the deadly methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus,” he said.
“Considering most countries have laws prohibiting over-the-counter sales of antibiotics, there is a need to ensure such laws are more strictly enforced where appropriate,” he added. (AGENCIES)
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HEALTH-GREENING-DEPRESSION
Greening vacant lots may lower depression in city dwellers
WASHINGTON, July 22:
Greening vacant urban land significantly reduces feelings of depression and improves overall mental health for the surrounding residents, a study has found.
The findings, published in the journal JAMA Network Open, have implications for cities across the US, where 15 per cent of land is deemed “vacant” and often blighted or filled with trash and overgrown vegetation.
The study found that people living within a quarter of a mile radius of greened lots had a 41.5 per cent decrease in feelings of depression compared to those who lived near the lots that had not been cleaned.
Those living near green lots also experienced a nearly 63 per cent decrease in self-reported poor mental health compared to those living near lots that received no intervention.
“Dilapidated and vacant spaces are factors that put residents at an increased risk of depression and stress, and may explain why socioeconomic disparities in mental illness persist,” said Eugenia C South, an assistant professor at University of Pennsylvania in the US.
“What these new data show us is that making structural changes, like greening lots, has a positive impact on the health of those living in these neighbourhoods,” said South.
For the trial, 541 vacant lots in Philadelphia were randomly assigned to one of three study arms: greening intervention, a trash clean-up intervention, or a control group with no intervention.
The greening intervention involved removing trash, grading the land, planting new grass and a small number of trees, installing a low wooden perimeter fence, and regular monthly maintenance.
Two sets of pre-intervention and post-intervention mental health surveys were performed among 342 people, 18 months before revitalisation and 18 months after.
Participants were asked to indicate how often they felt nervous, hopeless, restless, depressed, that everything was an effort, and worthless.
Results were most pronounced when looking only at neighbourhoods below the poverty line, with feelings of depression among residents who lived near green lots decreasing significantly – by more than 68 per cent.
Analyses of the trash clean-up intervention compared to no intervention showed no significant changes in self-reported mental health.
“The lack of change in these groups is likely because the trash clean-up lots had no additional green space created,” said John MacDonald, a professor at University of Pennsylvania.
“The findings support that exposure to more natural environments can be part of restoring mental health, particularly for people living in stressful and chaotic urban environments,” said MacDonald.
The study shows transforming blighted neighbourhood environments into green space can improve the trajectory of the residents’ mental health, the authors said.
Adding green space to neighbourhoods should be considered alongside individual treatments to address mental health problems in low resource communities. (AGENCIES)
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