It’s World Antibiotic Awareness Week and we all know that antibiotics are used to prevent and treat bacterial infections and we are lucky to have them. But we are learning we should not take them for granted and the world urgently needs to change the way it prescribes and uses antibiotics.
Antibiotic resistance is becoming a global problem and is due to the misuse and overuse of antibiotics as well as poor infection prevention and control. This happens when the bacteria being treated changes in response to the medicines used.
Here in the UK health professionals have to remind people that antibiotics do not treat viruses like the common cold or flu, as viruses are self limiting.
Even if new medicines are developed, without behaviour change antibiotic resistance will remain a major threat. We all have a responsibility to help bring about these changes to help reduce the spread of infections by….
- Access to clean water
- Good hand washing
- Prepare food hygienically
- Practice safe sex
- Keep Vaccinations up to date.
This is even more important in a resource poor area like Buburi where infections can become a life and death situation very quickly in an already malnourished child or elderly patient.
Let us take it upon ourselves to increase our awareness and spread it amongst our friends and families and save lives.