DHAKA, Nov 10, 2018 (BSS) – Around 300 million people across the globe are
at risks of death by the year 2050 due to antibiotic resistance caused by
unnecessary uses and overdose of the life saving drugs to human and animal
health, animal feeds and farm production, health experts told a seminar here
today.
They said Bangladesh, being the most densely-populated country in the
world with growing human and livestock populations and intensifying
agriculture, is a prime spot for emerging zoonotic pathogens that causes
infected diseases and antibiotic resistance is a major concern for human
health in the country.
The One Health Bangladesh in collaboration of International Centre for
Diarrheal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b), the Department of Livestock
Services, the Directorate of Health Services and other partners organised the
seminar on the occasion of One Health Day at the icddr,b this morning.
The experts, both local and international, opined that to overcome the
challenge, the world community as well as the governments especially in the
third world countries like Bangladesh should strictly check unnecessary use
of antibiotics through formulating and strictly enforcing laws to limit sales
and use of antibiotics without physicians’ advice.
At the same time, they said, there should have a strong monitoring over
the physicians and drug manufacturers so that no aggressive sales campaign
can be conducted to influence prescription of such medicines unnecessarily
and excessively.
Md Raisul Alam Mondal, secretary of Ministry of Fisheries & Animal
Resources, was present at the seminar as the chief guest while Dr Hiresh
Ranjan Bhowmik, director general of Department of Livestock Services, spoke
as special guest.
Senior Technical Adviser of One Health and Veterinary Education Professor
Dr Nitish C Debnath presented a keynote at the seminar while David Doolan,
deputy FAO representative in Bangladesh, Prof Allen Ross, senior director of
Infectious Diseases Division of ICDDR,B, also spoke.
Dr Eric Brum, team leader of FAO-ECTAD, Bangladesh, also presented a paper
on ‘Antimicrobial Resistance: Tripartite Effort to Combat’.
A paper on ‘Outbreak Communication & Advocacy’ was presented by Bangladesh
Center for Communication Programme (BCCP), a partner of the event.
As part of One Health Day-2018 observance, a daylong exhibition, a gallery
walk through Smithsonian’s Panel Exhibits and essay competition were also
organised at the seminar.
Apart from these, a number of scientific sessions including ‘Outbreak
Communication and Advocacy’ were organised on the sidelines of the seminar
with presentations, panel discussions and interactive dialogue.
Md Raisul Alam Mondal underscored the need for restricting sales of
antibiotic randomly without prescription by physicians.
He also urged the authorities concerned to take steps so that drug-maker
cannot conduct aggressive advertisement and sales promotion campaign to
influence doctors in suggesting life saving drugs to patients, where not
necessary.
Referring to a research study of Food and US Drug Administration (FDA), Dr
Hiresh Ranjan Bhowmik said about 70 percent of antibiotics used in animal
feed are not suitable.
“But knowingly or unknowingly those are randomly being used which
ultimately transmitted to human body causing anti-body to public health,” he
said.
The Department of Livestock Services DG said the government has taken
measures to overcome the threat of abusive and excessive use of antibiotic
for human and animal as well as animal feed.
“The Animal Feed Act has already been enacted to this end,” he said,
adding that the most important thing is to strictly enforcement of the law.
Bhowmik said the concerned department is monitoring the producers of
animal feed and there is a drive of mobile court. “If any violation of law is
found, then stern actions are being taken,” he said.
Urging all to act jointly for resolving this crisis, he said creation of
mass awareness is essential for making all people educated about adverse
consequences of misuse and overdose of antibiotics. “Use of herbal medicine
can a good solution to use of antibiotics,” he suggested laying importance of
undertaking biosecurity action plan to minimize antibiotic resistance.
In his paper, Dr Eric Brum mentioned the One Health Guideline of the World
Health Organisation (WHO) that suggested for use of narrow spectrum
antibiotic.
One Health Strategic Framework was introduced in Bangladesh in 2012.
Study suggests most diseases that infect humans are zoonotic and they
originate in other animals. When people began to farm and domesticate animals
around 11,000 years ago, the risk of exposure to zoonotic diseases increased.