Partnership for Global Health: A Study of Antimicrobial Resistance in Delhi, India
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is quickly becoming a serious threat to global public health and thus, requires action across all sectors (both government and society). Prolonged duration of illness, additional diagnostic tests, and expensive drugs increase the cost of healthcare for patients with resistant infections. Due to the higher burden of infectious diseases and skyrocketing out-of-pocket expenditure, AMR is an even greater challenge for developing nations like India[1]. In 2014, the Schedule H1 of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act was created to prevent sales of antibiotics without prescriptions.
To achieve its objective of conducting an independent multi-disciplinary research, CDDEP partnered with three MSD Fellows–Pramod Gawli, Mythili Nagaratnam, and Lourdes Rodriguez–as part of the company’s Fellowship for Global Health program. These Fellows set out to contribute to CDDEP’s mission of building AMR evidence by exploring over-the-counter use of antibiotics as well as the barriers and facilitators in the implementation of the current regulations on antibiotic use in Delhi, India.
Research fieldwork and qualitative data collection were carried out in different socio-economic settings in Delhi to unravel the social realities behind the consumption and dispensing practices of antibiotics without prescriptions, from the perspectives of both consumers and providers (dispensers and pharmacists).
The Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy (CDDEP), New Delhi, conducted this study in the latter half of 2019 with Dr. Jyoti Joshi as the Principal Investigator and Dr. Anjana Sankhil and Prof Ramanan Laxminarayan as Co-Principal Investigators.
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[1]CDDEP, 2015. The State of the World’s Antibiotics; Laxminarayan & Chaudhary, 2016. Antibiotic Resistance in India: Drivers and Opportunities for Action.
The “Partnership for Global Health: Antimicrobial Resistance in Delhi, India” project was funded in part by the MSD through its Fellowship for Global Health program.
