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New program launched to address antibiotic misuse in PHL

By RIE TAKUMI, GMA News

A new program by the Department of Health (DOH) will address the misuse of antibiotics by regular Filipinos and professionals alike to combat the emergence of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in the country.

The Antimicrobial Stewardship (AMS) Program, created in partnership with the World Health Organization (WHO), aims to promote the proper use of antibiotics to drive down AMR or the ability of microorganisms to withstand the effects of antibiotics and aggravate diseases or even lead to death.

 

 

Launched at the Manila Pavilion on Tuesday, AMS will make use of a set of operational tools that will be available to government hospitals and health practitioners: AMS Manual of Procedures, the National Antibiotics Guidelines, and the Antimicrobial Consumption Methods Guide.

Dr. Celia Carlos, Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) Assistant Director, said they will also begin a study on the disease and economic burden of AMR in the Philippines to improve the program.

Health Sec. Paulyn Jean Rosell-Ubial said of the study, “It’s very difficult to actually attribute—“this patient died of antimicrobial resistance” because they have to do a lot of studies… We’re not getting a complete enumeration of how many people, but we’re sampling a population and then attributing the occurrence of deaths in that population to the entire country.”

WHO country representative Gundo Weiler said AMR accounts for an estimated 700,000 deaths worldwide every year and it is predicted that this number will increase to 10 million by 2050.

Cultural change

While the Philippines is one of the leading countries in combating AMR in the Western Pacific Region, the country still faces the problem of citizens using antibiotics as regular medicine.

"This particular problem, as we’ve mentioned, is widespread and rampant, and it’s really a cultural change because in some communities, they think of antibiotics as vitamins. They don’t know that this is actually very specific to fight a specific infection,” Ubial said.

“We have to educate not just the professionals of the rational use but also the public,” she added.

Weiler added that the ability to combat disease with drugs is an achievement the world is "at risk of losing" due to AMR, made worse by the ability of consumers to buy antibiotics without a doctor's prescription and refusal to continue a full course of treatment.

 

 

“Antibiotics should be used to treat bacterial infections only when prescribed by a certified health professional,” Weiler said. "The full course of treatment must be completed, not saved for the future."

Physicians are also witnessing a rise in AMR-related deaths in hospitals where patients are subjected to more expensive treatments due to antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

 

 

“The physicians all see cases of patients who die because of antibiotic-resistant microorganisms. All those hospitals, they get prolonged and need more expensive antibiotics because of being afflicted by antibiotic-resistant bacteria,” Carlos said.

She then clarified that microorganisms do not become resistant to all forms of antibiotics once they develop a resistance to one antibiotic.

“If a microorganism is resistant to one, for example E. coli to amoxicillin, doesn’t  necessarily mean all the microorganism are resistant to the same extent to the same antibiotic. We need specific data partnering the microorganism with the antibiotic,” she said.

The DOH has set forth initiatives to discourage medical missions, where antibiotics are often obtained by individuals who see them as medicine, and strengthen the law that mandates prescriptions for antibiotics.

The Department of Agriculture will also take part in the AMS program as the wrong use of antibiotics has also plagued the livestock industry.

 

 

—KG, GMA News

Tags: departmentofhealth, antibiotics, antimicrobialresistance
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