By: Ibraheem Olasunkanmi Qoseem

Illness to man happens in different ways. It can be as result of stress, hereditary, accident, radiation or infectious organisms- bacteria, fungi, parasite and virus; while most of their healness” do come from consumption of medicines.

Medicine is a form of scientific intervention that is used to alleviate burden of sickness. It can be taken through mouth, injection, inhalation and other forms provided that it offers the doses for the needed relief.

As essential as these medicines are to the body in direst need, they can as well be poison to it if indiscriminately used; that is why it is not in anyway advisable to take medications without the expert’s prescription.

Although this uncouth practice has gained currency in our contemporary societies. Everyone feels comfortable patronizing over-the-counter drugs, prescribing for ourselves and people around us with little or no knowledge about their mechanism of actions: it works for A, so it will for B.

Using medicaments without expert’s prescription is a leading cause of antimicrobial resistance. Antibiotics Resistance is a situation where by the drug(antibiotics) used to mitigate the effects of microorganisms are no longer effective due to previous exposure in suboptimal or other uncalibrated doses and regimens.

Moreover, if the drug is taken in less than prescribed dosages, the microorganisms is bound to tolerate, survive and eventually withstand even higher concentrations of the drug. In this case, the microorganism has been emboldened to resist the drug. This is often the mechanism of community drig resistance build up

This is the reason why most drugs are no longer effective against common illnesses. Have you noticed the recent poor efficacy of penicillin, methicillin and vancomycin against most bacterial infections?

If antibiotics are completely ineffective, we are all gone! A simple infection will become complicated, there will be no protection for people with debilitated immune system- AIDS patients, children, cancer patients, and surgery operations will no longer be successful due to inability to carry out preventive treatment for the diseased.

According to Lancet, it was reported in 2019 that an estimated 1.27 millions of people died as a direct result of antibiotic resistant. Apart from being the leading cause of death globally, it also put us at the risk of long hospilization, costly treatment and poor health outcome. For these reasons, fighting against antibiotics resistance is a collective course we must all take part on.

There is no better time to fight it than now, because it is killing us at fast pace. Expert should prescribe drugs when necessary. Take drugs only with prescription. Ensure you complete a given doses. Check keenly for expired drugs. PCN, NAFDAC and other agencies should not at this time give up on this fight.

Happy World Antibiotics Resistance Week