India has emerged as the world's largest consumer of antibiotics, followed by China and the US, according to a new study on the growing alarm surrounding antibiotic-resistance.
Global use of antibiotics is surging, according to Princeton University researchers who have conducted a broad assessment of antibiotic consumption around the world.
The study, Global Trends in Antibiotic Consumption 2000- 2010, found that worldwide antibiotic use has risen a staggering 36 per cent over the studied 10-year period.
Indians take more antibiotics than any other nation in the world, a new study has found
The five Brics nations - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - have been held responsible for more than three-quarters of that surge.
Among the 16 groups of antibiotics studied, cephalosporins, broad-spectrum penicillins and fluoroquinolones accounted for more than half of that increase, with consumption rising 55 per cent from 2000 to 2010.
The study quantifies the growing alarm surrounding antibiotic-resistant pathogens and a loss of efficacy among antibiotics used to combat the most common illnesses.
The report also highlights an increasing resistance to carbapenems and polymixins, two classes of drugs that have long been considered last-resort antibiotics for illnesses without any other known treatment.
Overall, the study reviewed patterns, seasonality and frequency of use of antibiotics in 71 countries.
"The data underscore the welcome evidence that more global citizens are able to access and purchase antibiotics. But that use is not being effectively monitored by health officials, from doctors to hospital workers to clinicians," the researchers noted.
"Consequently, antibiotic use is both rampant and less targeted. That reality is driving antibiotic resistance at an unprecedented rate," researchers said.
"We have to remember that before we had antibiotics, it was pretty easy to die of a bacterial infection," said Ramanan Laxminarayan, a research scholar with the Princeton Environmental Institute.
"And we're choosing to go back into a world where you won't necessarily get better from a bacterial infection," he added. While India is the largest consumer of antibiotics, US accounts for the highest per capita consumption, with a rate of more than twice that of India.
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