Not without prescription: Govt to crack whip on arbitrary antibiotic sales

It is mandatory to show prescription to procure some drugs, but chemists violate these norms

As misuse of antibiotics has begun claiming lives, the Drugs Controller General of India Dr G N Singh told Business Standard that the centre is issuing an advisory to all state drug controllers asking them to crack the whip on arbitrary sale of antibiotics. GN Singh says that the state controllers will help ensure that no chemist in India sells antibiotics without a valid prescription. 

Singh is of the opinion that even the least powerful antibiotics can prove fatal if taken more than the prescribed dosage. Thus, preventing people from taking unnecessary doses of antibiotics becomes necessary.

Even though antibiotics are part of the Schedule H1 which means it is mandatory to show a prescription to procure these drugs, chemists are often found violating these norms. The central drug regulator feels that this needs to be curbed to ensure fatal incidents do not occur.

This move comes after an American woman visiting India died after she was infected by a super bug. Scientifically, it is believed that such an incident can occur if the person develops resistance to all antibiotics. A strain of carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) — a multi-drug-resistant family of organisms associated with high mortality — caused the infection. The specific bacterium was identified as Klebsiella pneumoniae.