The Ministry of Health called for refraining from the misuse of antibiotics to preserve their effectiveness for as long as possible

Wednesday, November 22, marks World Antimicrobial Resistance Awareness Week. On this occasion, the Ministry of Health urged people not to misuse antibiotics to preserve their effectiveness for as long as possible.

Otherwise, humanity faces a post-antibiotic era, where common infections and minor injuries can once again become fatal. This was announced by Minister Viktor Liashko.

He noted that a significant number of currently known antibiotics were created in the last century. In recent decades, the arsenal of doctors has seen little replenishment with fundamentally new antibiotics, and there are various reasons for this.

"The development of new drugs, including antibiotics, is difficult and costly. We are talking about hundreds of millions or billions of dollars. Pharmaceutical companies are increasingly questioning whether it is worth investing in the development of new antibiotic molecules because the rapid emergence of resistance increases the risk of devaluing investments in new drug development," explained the head of the Ministry of Health.

He clarified that recent studies show that microorganisms develop resistance to 6 out of 10 new antibiotics within a year.

That is why, as emphasized by Viktor Liashko, it is crucial for antibiotics not to lose their effectiveness, meaning their ability to treat infectious diseases, for as long as possible. Otherwise, there is a significant risk of entering the so-called "post-antibiotic era," where infections currently under control could transform into a deadly threat.

He added that during World Antimicrobial Resistance Awareness Week, he visited the pharmaceutical company Arterium, a leader in the antibiotic production segment in Ukraine. The Minister and his team discussed the industry's development prospects and the challenges posed by Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

"It is impossible to completely stop resistance, but everyone can slow down its development. To achieve this, it is necessary: not to self-medicate and take antibiotics only as prescribed by a doctor. It is important not to skip medication and not to interrupt the treatment prescribed by a doctor, even if you feel better!" summarized the Health Minister.

As a reminder, on January 1, healthcare facilities in Ukraine started recording the use of antimicrobials. There are 29 antibiotics in total.

Earlier, OBOZ wrote about the problem of antibiotic abuse. Thus, according to Israeli doctor Boris Bryl, there were many hospitalizations of patients with coronavirus in Ukraine precisely because they were "treated" with such drugs.

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