GETTING BETTER GETS MORE DIFFICULT
Based on the data by World Health Organization (WHO), the experts point out that Turkey is one of the 3 countries where body resistance of people increased due to inappropriate use of antibiotics, and that a new roadmap was needed. The WHO report on 114 countries including Turkey, warned about global threat, and the experts raised concern over non-prescription antibiotics and inappropriate use of antibiotics.
Yavuz Selim Süral, Lecturer at Izmir University of Economics Faculty of Health Sciences, stated that antibiotics were used for almost all illnesses even though they did not have pain relieving or fever reducing effects. “Especially in Turkey, number one cause of body resistance is using non-prescription antibiotics and using them insensibly. Frequent use of antibiotics in our country causes the body resistance to be over the world average. If the germs get resistant to an antibiotic then that antibiotic loses its effect on the germ. Therefore, different antibiotics should be used for different bacteria,” said Süral.
‘Do not throw the medicine in the trash!’
Süral stated that throwing the expired antibiotics in the trash had significant biological effect on the nature, and when waste medication encountered bacteria, the bacteria developed resistance to the antibiotics. Süral stated the following:
“When a microorganism that developed resistance to medication causes illness in someone else, that illness becomes difficult to heal. To break that resistance, stronger, expensive antibiotics with more side effects are being used. In this way, we lose battle against the illness and are faced with more costly treatments.”
‘Think about the dangers’
Süral indicated that such medication needed to be used with doctor’s prescription and recommendations. Insensible use of medicine did not heal, but caused more harm to the patient, he stated. Süral pointed out the importance of drawing a new roadmap and informing the society when it came to using medicines.