Plan to change eight state labs in India into antibiotics research hubs: Dr Lata Kapoor
The details were given by Dr Lata Kapoor, joint director NCDC, who presented a talk on the subject antimicrobial resistance (AMR) containment country response at Sassoon General Hospital on Tuesday
Pune National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) will be strengthening eight state labs to focus on antibiotic research. These labs would be under the state medical colleges and mostly located in north India. The state labs which come under the state government medical colleges will analyse the data based on the patients who visit these hospitals to check on the resistance rate of bacteria.
The details were given by Dr Lata Kapoor, joint director NCDC, who presented a talk on the subject antimicrobial resistance (AMR) containment country response at Sassoon General Hospital on Tuesday. Kapoor said that the proportion at which resistant bacteria and viruses are coming up is inversely proportional to the antibiotics for those bacteria.
Kapoor, who was one of the speakers at the 46th National Conference on Research, said that according to a report by economist Lord Jim O’Neil in 2014 about 10 million deaths per year are projected in 2050 if current infection and resistance trends are not reversed and the largest numbers will be in Asia and Africa.
She said, “The threats by AMR to public health are that the patient remains infectious for a longer time increasing the risk of spreading of the microorganisms to others. Longer duration of treatment also adds to the financials and societies.”
The AMR programme under NCDC is submitted on a quarterly basis which is analysed by the NCDC on an annual basis. Currently around 20 colleges across India are involved with this programme, including Pune’s BJ Medical college. According to the NCDC website, in the year 2017, AMR surveillance data was submitted by 10 network labs which was analysed. It was found that the resistance rates to most antimicrobials are high in these common pathogens.
Kapoor also focused on new curriculum in medical college to include AMR research and study on priority to contain the spread of such viruses.
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New labs to be added
1. Pt Jawahar Lal Nehru Memorial Medical College, Raipur, Chhattisgarh
2. Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences, Ranchi, Jharkhand
3. Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences, Patna, Bihar
4. Government Medical college, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh
5. Calcutta School Of Tropical Medicine, Kolkata, West Bengal
6. Lala Lajpat Rai Memorial Medical College, Meerut, UP
7. Guru Gobind Singh Medical College and Hospital, Faridkot, Punjab
8. Government medical College, Haldwani, Uttarakhand
The colleges currently under the programme include:
1. BJMC Pune, Maharashtra
2. BJMC Ahmedabad, Gujarat
3. GSVM Medical college Kanpur, UP
4. GMCH Chandigarh
5. SMS Medical College Jaipur, Rajasthan
6. LHMC, Delhi
7. VMMC and Safdarjung Hospital, Delhi
8. MMC & RI Mysore, Karnataka
9. KAPV Government Medical College, Trichy, Tamil Nadu
10. Government Medical College, Thiruvanathapuram, Kerala
11. Guwahati Medical college, Guwahati, Assam
12. Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Medical college, Indore, MP
13. NEIGRIHMs, Shillong, Meghalaya
14. IGMC, Shimla, HP
15. Medical College, Jammu
16. Medical College, Aurangabad, Maharashtra
17. Osmania General Hospital & Osmania Medical College, Hyderabad, Telangana
18. SCB Medical College Hospital, Cuttack, Odisha
19. Agartala Govt. Medical College & GBP Hospital
20. Guntur Medical College & Govt. General Hospital, Andhra Pradesh