Excessive antibiotics use in Covid-19 cases adds 'fuel to fire' in India

Excessive use of the world’s most potent antibiotics has stoked drug-resistant infections in India for years. Now the country’s Covid crisis has put the calamity into hyperdrive.

A first look at how many patients hospitalized during India’s first coronavirus wave also developed bacterial and fungal infections found that a small but alarming proportion harbor germs that resist multiple drugs.

Doctors battling to save lives amid a dearth of effective treatments are turning to the medicines they have on hand -- often antibiotics that aren’t used in other countries for Covid-19. What’s more, the chaos of overrun hospitals means staff can’t