PUTRAJAYA: The health authorities are monitoring the misuse of antibiotics to ensure that it does not reach a level that would endanger the people’s well-being, according to Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad.
He said the misuse of antibiotics contributed to antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and at present the level stood at about 30%. “If it exceeds this level, the country could face major dangers,” he said at the launch of the National Antimicrobial Guideline today.
“Antimicrobial resistance could cause the re-emergence of communicable diseases and this was a very serious threat,” he added.
Dzulkefly said the National Antimicrobial Guideline (NAG) 2019 should be the main reference point in treating communicable diseases.
“However, such guidelines are not enough to control the use of antibiotics,” he said. “Auditing the use of antibiotics is necessary to evaluate the level of compliance and if necessary identify aspects that need to be improved.”
He said doctors should not be “trigger happy” when prescribing antibiotics or other medicines because this was irresponsible and was a form of negligence.
“Huge amounts of money is being spent to deal with this problem,” he said.
Dzulkefly said that in an attempt to tackle this problem, the ministry had made it compulsory for all its healthcare facilities to abide by the NAG and three university hospitals, the military hospitals and the private hospitals are cooperating with the ministry.
The O’Neill Review on Antimicrobial Resistance estimates that AMR could kill 10 million people annually by 2050 if there was no early effective intervention.
Dzulkefly added that the same report also came to the conclusion that AMR could result in economic losses valued at US$100 trillion (RM419 trillion) yearly.
