The Shai-Osudoku District Hospital at Dodowa, has launched the World’s Antimicrobial Resistance Awareness Week, cautioning against self-medication practices among the public.
The week is aimed at educating health practitioners and the public on the effects and dangers of engaging in self-medication.
Dr Alexander Adjei, the Assistant General Medical Superintendent of the Shai-Osudoku District Hospital, speaking at the launch, indicated that humans face a lot of health challenges, making people rely on antibiotics as the easiest medication to get healed.
Dr Adjei said that had become a problem in the communities, as some health professionals even give antibiotics to patients without thorough research and education, while the people too abuse the drugs through self-medication.
He said the theme for the week-long awareness creation was: “Act Now: Protect Our Present, Secure Our Future,” reflecting the importance of a collective responsibility to ensure that the practice stopped.
He emphasised that not every infection needed an antibiotic, and so there was the need for health practitioners to properly test and diagnose a patient before one was put on antibiotics or not.
“We don’t have to give an antibiotics to a child because his parents have an infection, nor should a farmer put antibiotics into food to feed the animals through,” he emphasised.
Dr Adjei underscored the importance of education to protect the community from the abuse of the antibiotics.
He therefore called on the health professionals and pharmacists to examine patients before prescribing antibiotic medications and also urged community members to desist from self-medication.
Mr Stephen Adase, the Greater Accra Regional Chief Pharmacist, said health practitioners should avoid the over-burden of drugs given to patients, as they keep unfinished drugs and use them for other sicknesses as well as share with neighbours, a practice he described as very dangerous.
Mr Adase urged nurses, pharmacists and other health professionals not to be pressured to prescribe antibiotics but rather to educate the patients on their medication, safe disposal of drugs after usage, and hand hygiene.
He called on the government to roll out stewardship programmes to train health professionals annually on such issues and beef up security at the borders to stop the smuggling of fake drugs into the country.
He said the government must also implement action plans for antimicrobial resistance and set up the antibiotics committee regulations on the importation of drugs and protection of antibiotics.
Mr Kennedy Brightson, the Adviser to the Vice President on health matters, stated that pharmacies also needed to be educated on antimicrobial resistance, as most of such establishments end up employing unqualified persons and training them as counter assistants, increasing the high risk of antibiotic drugs in the community.
Naana Ayerkie Yortsu III, the queen mother of the Osudoku Area, assured that she would help with the advocacy in the community to ensure that leftover drugs were properly disposed or returned to the hospital or pharmacy.
GNA
