Antibiotics menace: Govt not doing enough to curb sale of unapproved drugs

India is known as the pharmacy of the world, due to its large pharmaceutical industry

Efforts to conquer antimicrobial resistance are being jeopardised in India due to the sale of huge volumes of antibiotics that combine two anti-microbial drugs in one pill, a latest analysis reveals. Many of these fixed-dose combination (FDC) formulations, as they are known, have not been approved by India’s drug regulator. Their sale is illegal.

Antibiotic resistance is a global crisis, threatening to reverse the astonishing health benefits achieved with antibiotics. As bacteria adapt to survive, effective treatments, even for common infections, are diminishing.

Unfortunately, new antibiotics in development are not yet offering realistic prospects for treating the