CONTEXT:
The acquisition of antibiotic without a prescription by the general population is a typical practice found in community pharmacies across India, which is a notable contributor of antimicrobial resistance. According to the present regulation in India, sale of certain antimicrobials included in schedule H1 without prescription is unlawful. In this contest, a program was organized by the Drug Control Administration, Government of Andhra Pradesh, to educate pharmacists regarding schedule H1.
AIMS:
The aim of our study is to assess the impact of the program on the rate of antibiotics dispensed at community pharmacies.
SETTINGS AND DESIGN:
A cross-sectional study was designed to investigate the nonprescription sale of antibiotics, from September to December 2018 through 200 community pharmacies located in and around Guntur city located in the state of Andhra Pradesh in India.
SUBJECTS AND METHODS:
A simulated client methodology was used in this study. A total of 3 female actors including an author of this present study are prior trained to present a standardized simulation of clinical conditions (sore throat, urinary tract infection, cold, and fever) to the pharmacist at the community pharmacies.
STATISTICAL ANALYSIS USED:
Microsoft excel sheet was used for data analysis.
RESULTS:
The simulated patients successfully obtained antibiotic from 78% pharmacies with the highest rate of urinary tract infection when compared to other conditions. Pharmacists who objected to dispense antibiotics (22%) are found in developed locations in the city and appeared well qualified.
CONCLUSIONS:
The present study revealed that the antibiotics are continued to be sold without prescription even after the education program on schedule H1. The deregulation of the act is definitely the problem to be addressed by the government.
Identifying the targets for improving antimicrobial prescription and development of antimicrobial stewardship interventions can better serve to combat the situation of antimicrobial resistance. The primary objective was to determine the prevalence of antimicrobial use at tertiary care teaching hospital with both acute and long-term care patients. A periodical point prevalence survey was done in a tertiary care hospital of South India during 2019 using manual and webbased GLOBAL-PPS tool. Of 945 patients eligible for the study, 645 (69.5 %) received at least one antibiotic, with highest rates in the adult surgical ward and pediatrics. Of 645 therapeutic antibiotic prescriptions, 58.6% prescriptions have an infectious indication of them, 62.6% are community-acquired infections. Third-generation cephalosporins were the most prescribed antibiotics. The prevalence of antibiotic use is very high, and our study evidence that the country needs a robust antimicrobial stewardship intervention program.
Sweet corn fibres of about 15 gm were extracted with methanol for 5 hours in heating mantle at 40C and filtered and allowed to dry. The dried gel was further analyzed for estimation of Retinyl palmitate by spectrophotometrically by laboratory method and found to be 140 mg/kg. The dried extract gel was further estimated for ascorbic acid both by UV and HPTLC and found to be linear in the range of 1-5 ug/ml and 5-10ug/ml, correlation coefficient was found to be 0.997 and 0.998 and the amount of ascorbic acid was found to be 338 ng/ml and 9.9 ng/ml by UV and HPTLC respectively. The method was found to be linear.
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