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WHO warns against overusing antibiotics amid pandemic, says it will lead to more deaths

WION Web Team
New Delhi, IndiaEdited By: Bharat SharmaUpdated: Jun 02, 2020, 09:54 PM IST
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World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus Photograph:(AFP)

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WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus suggested that a lot of medicines that were used traditionally to treat bacterial infections are no longer working

The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned against increasing usage of antibiotics against coronavirus. The organisation further added that its usage will lead to more deaths during and after the pandemic the ends.

WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus suggested that a lot of medicines that were used traditionally to treat bacterial infections are no longer working.

The organisation fears that this trend will increase. “The Covid-19 pandemic has led to an increased use of antibiotics, which ultimately will lead to higher bacterial resistance rates that will impact the burden of disease and deaths during the pandemic and beyond,” Tedros said in a press conference, while adding that not all coronavirus patients require antibiotics to fight the infection.

The health body also released a new set of guidelines in dealing with antibiotics. According to the release, the organisations suggests against using “antibiotic therapy or prophylaxis” on COVID-19 patients.

Ghebreyesus also referred to antimicrobial resistance as “one of the most urgent challenges of our time”. He additionally said, “It’s clear that the world is losing its ability to use critically important antimicrobial medicines”.

He also addressed the disproportionate access to such medicines, while saying that some continues were overusing antibiotics while many had very limited access to the drugs.

A new report has exposed China’s criminal negligence in dealing with the coronavirus pandemic which has killed 3,77,404 people globally with over 6 million infections.

The Associated Press obtained internal recordings of the World Health Organization (WHO) featuring officials who led the organisation’s immediate response to COVID-19. The recordings are from the early days of the outbreak in China.

The AP Report says that the WHO was trying to coax more information from China, by lauding them in public.

However, this negligence led to infection spreading across the world over 180 countries.

The WHO has shrugged off any charges of lapses, and claimed they don’t want to get involved in politics.