Editor,

RE: "Antibiotic Week: Why drug resistance is on the rise” (The New Times, November 23).

The best way to handle this issue is to change the way the medicines are sold in pharmacies (human/veterinary).Why do pharmacists/veterinaries sell antibiotics to people without any medical prescription? Most of ordinary people ignore or confuse the role of antibiotics.

Antibiotics should be strictly sold on medical prescription. On the other hand, public awareness — rising on the public risk associated with abuse or misuse of antibiotics — should be done at all levels. Strict regulations and adequate policy should be put in place to follow how patients follow their prescribed treatment.

It is important that this issue be tackled by physicians/veterinaries for many reasons: most of the time, treatment of diseases use the same molecules both in humans and animals; more than 70 per cent of animal diseases can be transmitted to humans; the same bacteria infecting humans can also infect animals and vice versa, and their resistance to antibiotics is therefore transmissible between both beings; exposure of human body to antibiotic residues found in milk, meat...is an important source of resistance.

A holistic approach, integrating different antibiotic users and antibiotic related public competent authorities (medical authority, veterinary authority, civil society…), should work together through a clear plan with objectives and measurable indicators to curb this rapidly growing danger, otherwise thousands of lives risk to be lost by lack of effective antibiotics should we not play our part.

Jean-Claude Rukundo