India restricts antibiotic use in light of NDM-1

The Indian Union Health Ministry announced this week that it is planning to tighten control of antibiotic use. Certain antibiotics, such as carbapenem, imipenem, and meropenem, will be put under more stringent restrictions if the new rule is passed. Other ideas under consideration are mandatory “drug control” and “infection control” committees in hospitals, where the drug control committee will oversee the use of controlled antibiotics and the infection control committee will monitor and analyze infection rates.

The proposed changes are aimed to combat the spread of NDM-1 superbug and to slow the evolution of other drug resistance bugs in the future. NDM-1 superbugs are resistant to most antibiotics; in fact, the prevalent use of antibiotics in India partially contributed to the emergence of the superbug. NDM-1 first appeared in India in August of this year and has quickly spread to other countries, including the U.S. (See our previous blog post).

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