Srinagar: Alleging that Kashmir hospitals have turned into breading grounds for deadly bacteria, Doctors Association Kashmir (DAK) today said that even last-resort antibiotics do not work against these deadly microbes.
“Hospitals in Kashmir have become superbug factories. As per 2015 Antibiogram of S K Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) hospital, 80 per cent of bacteria isolated from ICUs were resistant to imipenem which is the last-line antibiotic,” DAK President Dr Nisar ul Hassan said.
He said the most common isolates were E coli, Klebsiella, Pseudomonas and Acinetobacter and they were found to have 100 per cent resistance to ceftriaxone, another high-end antibiotic.
“An increasing trend over the years in the antibiotic-resistant strains was observed in a prospective study at SKIMS. The situation in SMHS hospital is horrible as it is flooded with dangerous drug-resistant microbes,” he said.
The DAK president said patients go to hospitals to get well, but instead contract hospital bugs and die.
“These bugs aren’t limited to hospitals, they are out in the community and anyone, even healthy people, can become infected, he said, adding lack of infection control measures and poor sanitation in hospitals provide favorable conditions for resistant microorganisms to emerge, spread and persist.
“Inappropriate and irrational use of antibiotics has helped the microbes to evolve into resistant strains. We are kind of back to the era of not having antibiotics. With no antibiotics, cancer chemotherapy and simple surgery will become impossible and we are facing a future where cough or cut could kill once again,” he said.
“It is estimated that more than 700,000 people die each year worldwide, and if the trend continues, the figure will go to 10 million by 2015,” he added.
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