Simulated patient study sheds new light on antibiotic use in India
By Shobha Shukla - CNS (Citizen News Service)
Overuse and/or misuse of antibiotics has led to antimicrobial resistant superbugs pose a global health emergency. This threat is particularly great in India, that has the highest burden of TB in the world and is also the world’s largest consumer of antibiotics. In a first of its kind study, led by Dr Srinath Satyanarayana of McGill University, and published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, researchers used standardized patients (also called ‘simulated or mystery patients’) to understand how pharmacies in 3 Indian cities treated patients presenting with TB symptoms or diagnoses and to determine whether these pharmacies were contributing to the inappropriate use of antibiotics.
