Antibiotics are not as good as we perceive them

Antibiotic pollution: The critical issues of enrichment of our environment by antibiotics, antibiotic resistant population of microbes and their genes are one of the greatest emerging threats to our environment. The solid waste or liquid waste accumulation of diversity of antibiotics due to their release from the industries or expired or unused products from the hospitals or households is making the environmental waste management processes quite challenging. Further the partially metabolised antibiotic components are released or excreted unaltered via human and animal excretory products into the surrounding environment (pits, ground water, lakes, rivers, etc.). Even the world’s topmost waste treatment plants are not capable to remove these antibiotics, so they continuously build up their concentration in our environment because most of their non-biodegradable nature. Therefore, ecological effects of antibiotic presence in soil and aquatic ecosystems alone has serious risks to human, animal and plant health. The undue presence of antibiotics in our environment is responsible for altering the free living microbial communities and disturbing their useful ecological functions like nutrient cycling, maintenance of relationships between living organisms, ecosystem productivity, natural decomposition, regulation of microclimate and sustenance of food web dynamics. The pollution of our environment with antibiotics and resistant genes of superbugs is emerging as a novel and complex type of antibiotic pollution or genetic pollution which seems more to be an evolutionary phenomenon albeit accelerated by anthropogenic actions. Every individual has a role here to discourage the release of unused or waster antibiotics into our surroundings.
Antibiotic resistance: Right from the beginning of their usage, superbugs evolved in the microbial world due to the development of antibiotic resistance which is a natural adaptation (evolution and mutation) against the chemicals aimed to either kill or arrest thee microbial growth. On one hand antibiotics protect us from untimely diseases and deaths, but worldwide thousands of people die each year because of the antibiotic resistant infections alone and this is a major global health threat. Because, people indiscriminately consume antibiotics as per their choice or wish whether they really need them or not. So we are caught in a double sword effect of antibiotics i.e. decreased susceptibility to antibiotic action and millions of deaths secondarily due to antibiotic resistance. At the same time, it is equally tough to convince ourselves that we can even continue without antibiotics because, we are facing a continuous threat and risk of diversity of emerging and mysterious infectious diseases. We have developed such a great dependency on these wonder drugs that we keep a reserve of them in our houses just like other daily use items. However, the antibiotic use and resistance varies throughout the world and we are perhaps the worst hit in absence of proper measures and initiatives to minimise its occurrence.
Destruction of microbiota: Nature has provided as a useful quota of trillions of microorganisms at different locations of our body as a means of natural defence against the establishment of foreign pathogens in our body. Secondly, these useful microbes are very important for our normal wellbeing by strengthening our immune system. However, the excessive use of antibiotics either kills these useful microbiota or destroy their normal physiological processes thereby depriving us from their useful role in our body. A vast category of human disease alone result due to destructive effects of antibiotics on these useful microbial communities of our body. So taking antibiotics only under proper medical supervision is a prerequisite to safeguard our normal microbiota from their ill effects.
Concluding remarks: As it is not possible to do away with the antibiotics or to completely replace them with other alternatives, therefore, we need to adapt to the changing global trends vis-à-vis the controlled use and prescription of antibiotics. In most parts of world, the prescription of antibiotics is allowed only after strict and regulated permission by the competent authorities that too in case of the medical emergencies. Therefore, it will be wiser to minimise their use, avoid self-medication and only take them under strict medical or doctoral supervision. Policy measures and programs to check and limit the antibiotic release into our environment need to be accelerated and strictly followed to reduce antibiotic pollution.

Originally published in Greater Kashmir on February 27, 2019