‘Why antibiotics turn resistance drugs’

The Consumer Protection Council (CPC) has linked the menace of fake, adulterated, counterfeit or sub-standard drugs as the major causes of antibiotics drugs resistance.

It also listed other factors to include non-compliance with dosage as prescribed by medical practitioners, self-medication, and unnecessary prescription.

The Director General of the Council, Mrs. Dupe Atoki, stated this in Abuja yesterday during a sensitization programme to commemorate the 2016 world consumer day.

Atoki said for the 2016 celebration, the international consumer movement has decided to focus on antibiotics resistance and as such, the Council has adopted the theme: ‘Consumer beware! Antibiotics resistance can kill.’’ She said the major cause of renal failure that requires organs’ transplant can be attributed to misuse of drugs including antibiotics.

Majority of Nigerians according to her, including the educated ones are in the habit of self-medication, picking drugs on the counter without doctors’ prescriptions and non-adherence to prescribed dosage by physicians coupled with discarding of prescribed drugs after a few days of use and getting some small relieve.

This is coming as the Consumers Rights Project (CRP) has called for a defined global time-bound action to phase out the routine use of human medicine on all meat and poultry supply chains.

Raising the alarm on the occasion of this year’s World Consumer Rights Day yesterday, with the theme: ‘Antibiotics Off the Menu’, the group stated that deaths attributable to antimicrobial resistance might rise to 4,150,000 in Africa alone by 2050.