Page 57 - Mann Ki Baat (English)

practices increases the risk of
resistance and treatment failure.
Not every illness requires
antibiotics, hence our Honourable
Prime Minister has given a
call that “Medicines require
guidance and Antibiotics require
doctors”. Doctors, based on
symptoms, clinical examination,
and sometimes laboratory
tests, should decide whether an
antibiotic is needed at all, which
antibiotic would be appropriate, misuse of antibiotics can lead
and how long it should be to community-wide resistance.
taken. Taking antibiotics without It increases healthcare costs,
prescription can be ineffective, overwhelms hospitals, reduces
harmful, and dangerous— workforce productivity, and
masking serious illness, causing threatens national health
side effects, and promoting security. Antibiotic resistance
resistance that affects everyone. is therefore not just a personal
Resistant bacteria spread among problem- rather a societal threat.
people, through food, water, If antibiotic resistance
hospitals, and the environment. continues to rise, common
This means that one person’s infections may become

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