The Abuse Of Antibiotics Is Widespread In China&Nbsp; Serious Harm And Urgent Legal Regulation

prevent Antibiotic abuse Urgent legal norm

A few days ago, it was revealed that two children in Ningxia had been detected to be carrying the superbug NDM-1, which quickly caused a heated debate on the topic of "antibiotic abuse" from all walks of life. China has become the country that uses the most antibiotics in the world, and is also one of the countries that abuse antibiotics most seriously. Even food and feed contain antibiotics.

Current situation The abuse of antibiotics is very common

The survey shows that the use rate of antibiotics among inpatients in China is 56%, the highest of which is close to 99%; The average figure abroad is 30%. In China, the abuse of antibiotics is widespread, such as allowing advertisements to buy drugs at will, using drugs without prescriptions, using drugs without indications, changing antibiotics frequently, and taking too long a course of treatment. At the same time, driven by economic interests, doctors are willing to use the latest and most high-end antibiotics for patients, while patients are also willing to use the new broad-spectrum antibiotics recommended by doctors because of the psychology of "seeing the effect immediately". As a result, patients also have "high drug resistance" after encountering "high drug costs".

The stronger the drug resistance, the higher the infection rate and mortality rate. That is to say, if you are infected with drug-resistant bacteria, the probability of death will increase, and it is likely that there is "no medicine to treat". According to experts, hundreds of thousands of people died in 2005 due to antibiotic resistant bacterial infections in China.

In terms of food safety, if the abuse of antibiotics is not limited, the "antibiotic contaminated" food will seriously damage national health and reduce national quality. At present, antibiotics are also widely used in the breeding industry. These drugs are not used to treat sick animals, but to prevent animals from getting sick and to add feed to promote animal growth. This practice has reached consensus in the breeding industry. As a result, antibiotics appeared in the air and soil around the farm, surface water and groundwater, retail meat and eggs, and even wild animals.

The residues of these antibiotics can enter and accumulate in the human body through various ways, which will not only cause organ lesions, but also turn the human body into a small environment for cultivating "superbacteria". Medical experts pointed out that there are many patients with "superbacteria" who have neither a history of infection nor a hospital stay, and the cause may be related to the abuse of antibiotics in food.

Learn from foreign countries and implement strict Restriction and control system

The discovery and application of antibiotics ushered in a new era in the fight against infectious diseases. However, the abuse of antibiotics has also brought a lot of trouble to people, such as the increase of bacterial resistance, the sharp decline in the effectiveness of antibiotics, the rise in medical costs, and so on. At present, many countries have adopted strict restrictions and control systems on the use of antibiotics to prevent the abuse of antibiotics.

1、 Antibiotic prescription drug control system. Antibiotics are strictly defined as prescription drugs in foreign countries. The use of antibiotics is legal only when there is a prescription from a licensed doctor. Antibiotics cannot be sold to the public as over-the-counter drugs in pharmacies, or they will be subject to high fines and civil or even criminal liabilities.

2、 Antibiotic use process control system. The doctor can prescribe antibiotics only if the patient has serious infection symptoms after the bacterial drug sensitivity test in the hospital and the doctor thinks it is necessary to use them, and it is required to indicate the basis for using antibiotics, dosage, course of treatment, days of using the same antibiotic and other information. In addition, it must be approved by medical staff and finally approved by the pharmacy, emphasizing the indication, pertinence and scheme of antibiotic use, and the approval of use procedures is very strict.

3、 The use of antibiotics is low but not high. When patients must use antibiotics, the system usually does not allow licensed physicians to directly use the most high-end antibiotics (such as the fourth generation cephalosporins), but first use low-end antibiotics with low side effects. In particular, the use of vancomycin, which is highly toxic but has been used as the "last line of defense" for the treatment of drug-resistant gram-positive bacteria, should be strictly controlled.

4、 Control system for the prevention of infectious use of antibiotics. Although antibiotics are the basic way to prevent infection by drugs, in order to reduce the use of antibiotics, foreign countries have adopted the principle of "emphasizing process control, ignoring drug prevention" for infection prevention, strengthened the process control of medical behavior, reduced the opportunities of medical infection, and strictly controlled cross infection.

5、 Antibiotics are completely prohibited in the breeding industry. In January 2006, EU countries completely banned the addition of any antibiotics to feed, which is the most stringent measure taken worldwide to ensure food safety, and prevent the possibility of antibiotic residues from the food source into the human body.

It is precisely because of the strict control of the use of antibiotics in terms of systems and procedures that the abuse of antibiotics has been effectively controlled within a certain range, and the methods are worthy of our reference.

Viewpoint The supervision of antibiotic use needs to be standardized

The reason why foreign countries have adopted strict control over the use of antibiotics is that they gradually realize that not limiting the use of antibiotics will bring disastrous consequences to human drug and food safety. The recent emergence of "superbacteria" has sounded the alarm bell for human abuse of antibiotics.

In China's current drug management law, only domestic and imported narcotic drugs, psychotropic drugs, toxic drugs for medical use, and radioactive drugs are subject to special management, which is often referred to as restrictive management. For example, the familiar narcotic drugs such as morphine, psychotropic drugs such as dolantine, valium, and toxic drugs such as arsenic for medical use are strictly controlled, However, antibiotics do not belong to the above controlled drugs, and the sales and use of antibiotics have not been strictly restricted and controlled, especially the control of the addition and use of antibiotic drugs in breeding feed.

It should be said that there are relevant provisions on the use of antibiotics in China's current drug and food management regulations, but these provisions are mainly limited to the internal regulations of the health department and the operation process of the use of antibacterial drugs in hospital management. From the perspective of the level of legal effectiveness, the upper level is low, and the legal force and punishment are relatively weak.

It is never too late to mend the wounds. After all sectors of society gradually realize the serious harm of the abuse of antibiotics, we should learn from the experience of some countries in the control and management of antibiotics, include antibiotics in the scope of special management in drug control, strengthen the control and supervision of antibiotics, and especially strictly restrict the use of antibiotics in the breeding industry, Strengthen the detection and tracking of antibiotic residues in food, and strengthen the enforcement and punishment of illegal acts of abuse of antibiotics.