Re: Rational use of antimicrobials - The community cost

[Guest guest]

Friends, I really thanks Vijay and Bhava Narayana a lot for raising a vital point, “Economic aspect of Antimicrobial resistance”. Here are some data to give the impression regarding magnitude of economic burden to the society

because of Anti microbial resistance. Antibiotics for gonorrhoea: 50-90 x price of penicillins Antimalarial drugs: chloroquine $0.10 per treatment

artemether-lumefantrine $2.50/pp (25x) atovaquone-proguanil $40/pp

(400x) Antituberculosis: $15 for DOTS Vs $300 for MDR (20x) Antiretrovirals: $300-600/year; but 38 countries with a drug budget <$2 pp/year As we all know that types of costs that may be: Direct medical cost: Medical resources used to treat a disease or illness (eg, hospital care, drugs). Direct non medical costs:

Costs of nonmedical products and services that enable patients to receive treatment (eg,

transportation to site of treatment). Indirect costs: are the costs of morbidity or mortality resulting from an illness (eg, loss in productivity). Intangible costs: Refer to the pain and suffering caused by illness and/or treatment, and are difficult to quantify. As highligthed by Dr Vijay and others,it

is ultimately the poor patient who pays for the irresponsible use. TruptiVijay <drvijaythawani@...> wrote: The community costs for

irrational use of antimicrobials The irrational use of antimicrobials (AM) results in early demise of efficacious AM. The search for newer AM is not all that fruitful as fewer AM are coming up on the scene. The irrational use is responsible for micro organism resistance with the result that in future higher AM have to be used, which are more costly, thereby adding to the cost of therapy. Thus it is the patient who finally pays more for irrational us of AM. The pharma companies investing in research of newer AM finally recover the investment made in research from the product. Thus the community pays higher price for newer molecules because the older ones become less effective. Some of the older AM are still effective eg. Penicillins. These are not used commonly due to the fear of

anaphylaxis, thereby leading to disuse. Thus cheaper AM inspite of being available have been shelved and newer AM inspite of being costly are preferred. Thus the patient pays higher for getting the new AM. For all the blunders that the medics, pharmacists and nursing staff commit in AM prescription, supply and administration, it is the patient who is the recipient, sufferer and payee. Vijay Thawani

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