India has witnessed excessive use of the world’s most potent antibiotics for years causing drug-resistant infections. The onset of the new Covid crisis has geared up this decade long calamity even more.

India has seen patients from the first coronavirus wave developing some serious bacterial and fungal infections, that resist multiple drugs.

Doctors in India, battling to save lives, are often using readily available treatments like antibiotics, that aren’t being used in other countries for Covid-19. What’s in addition to furthermore spread of infection are, the overrun hospitals that arent able to control infection spread from one patient to the next, due to lack of everything.

The vicious use of some higher antibiotics (reserved for the most difficult-to-treat cases) are further adding alarming antimicrobial resistance levels. India has seen overprescription of drugs in these covid times.

The journal of Infection and Drug Resistance published research that analysed data from 17,534 Covid patients. Among which, 3.6%, developed a secondary infection, though the incidence was reported to be as high as 28% in some hospitals. Co-infections caused by multidrug-resistant organisms were reported in about 50% of the cases.

Fatality Rate: The study further reported that almost 60% of patients with secondary infections died, contracting with about 11% without any secondary infection. The majority of these individuals had comorbidities like diabetes, hypertension or another underlying health condition established to worsen the severity of Covid-19.

The study utilized data when Covid cases were on a surge and witnessed a lot of over-prescribing of antimicrobials during that time.

The researchers also found the use of carbapenem, the most potent antibacterial, and colistin, a drug to treat the most stubborn antibiotic-resistant strain, prescribed by the doctors to treat the Covid-10 patients. 

A thing to worry about: The researchers also mentioned high rates of resistance to these important medicines in bacteria like Klebsiella pneumonia and Acinetobacter baumannii, is a thing to worry about.

The authors also reported that the bloodstream was the most common site of secondary infections.

Fungal Infection: The Researchers regarded, generous use of steroids, invasive procedures like mechanical ventilation and prolonged hospital stays to cause hospital-acquired infections in the vulnerable group of Covid patients.

Generous use of Steroid in the second covid wave might have triggered more than 4,000 cases of a fungal infection- mucormycosis.

The researchers also found that the use of gloves made the Health workers feel the barrier and they neglected the need to wash their hands, allowing the bugs to remain on the personal protective equipment and transfer from one patient to another.

Covid Fear: The study mentioned that the fear that prevailed among the health care community might have lead to the overuse of antibiotics, thus leading to their resistance and occurrence of deadly secondary infection.