Antibiotic Resistance On The Rise: Bihar To Launch Surveillance Program

Patna : The World Health Organization (WHO) has raised concerns that antibiotics are becoming increasingly ineffective due to their overuse and misuse. Both the central and state governments are now working towards restricting the over-prescription of these essential medicines.
In response to this growing threat, the Bihar state health department is preparing to place certain drugs under surveillance to investigate the causes of antibiotic resistance. As part of this initiative, the department is set to launch the One Health program, a comprehensive approach to tackling the issue.
According to officials from the Health Department, antibiotic resistance is reaching alarming levels, posing a serious challenge to the treatment of common infections. Diseases such as pneumonia, tuberculosis, and blood poisoning are becoming increasingly difficult, and sometimes impossible, to treat as antibiotics lose their effectiveness.
The One Health program aims to assess the declining efficacy of medicines used for treating antibiotic-resistant infections, waterborne diseases such as diarrhea and dysentery, and zoonotic diseases. Through this initiative, health officials will conduct an in-depth analysis to determine why these medications are losing their effectiveness and develop strategies to counteract this trend.
Dr. Ranjit Kumar, State Program Officer for the Integrated Disease Surveillance Program (IDSP), emphasized the urgency of the situation, stating that a unified strategy is being developed to monitor and investigate the drugs that are proving ineffective in treating infections. “Through comprehensive surveillance, we can identify the root causes of antibiotic resistance and implement measures to address the challenge,” he said.