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Antibiotics should not be used in Covid cases unless there is clinical suspicion of bacterial infection, according to a revised guideline for the treatment of adult coronavirus patients issued by the Centre. The revised guidelines, issued on Sunday amid an uptick in coronavirus cases, stated that drugs such as Lopinavir-ritonavir, hydroxychloroquine, Ivermectin, Molnupiravir, Favipiravir, Azithromycin and Doxycycline should not be used for the treatment of adult COVID-19 patients in India. The AIIMS/ICMR-COVID-19 National Task Force met on January 5 to revise the clinical guidance protocol. It has also advised doctors not to use convalescent plasma therapy. "Antibiotics should not be used unless there is clinical suspicion of bacterial infection. Possibility of co-infection of COVID-19 with other endemic infections must be considered," the guidelines said. Additionally, in moderate or severe diseases at high risk of progression, Remdesivir may be considered for up to five days. It
Glenmark Pharmaceuticals on Tuesday said it has received approval from the US health regulator to market a generic antibiotic drug. The company has received final approval from the US Food & Drug Administration (USFDA) for Clindamycin Hydrochloride Capsules, a generic version of Pfizer's Cleocin capsules, Glenmark Pharma said in a statement. Glenmark's Clindamycin Hydrochloride Capsules in strengths of 75 mg, 150 mg, and 300 mg, will be distributed in the US by Glenmark Pharmaceuticals Inc, it added. According to IQVIA sales data for the 12-month period ending January 2023, the Cleocin Hydrochloride Capsules, 75 mg, 150 mg, and 300 mg achieved annual sales of around USD 33.6 million. Glenmark shares were trading 0.12 per cent up at Rs 426.10 apiece on the BSE.
The Indian Council of Medical Research has issued guidelines warning against the use of antibiotics for conditions such as low-grade fever and viral bronchitis while advising doctors to follow a timeline while prescribing them. The ICMR guidelines stated that antibiotics should be prescribed for a duration of five days for skin and soft tissue infections, five days in case of community-acquired pneumonia and eight days for hospital-acquired pneumonia. "A clinical diagnosis most often helps us predict causative pathogens fitting into a clinical syndrome which would tailor the correct antibiotic rather than blindly relying on fever, procalcitonin levels, WBC counts, cultures or radiology to make a diagnosis of infection," the guidelines said. It stated limiting empiric antibiotic therapy to seriously ill patients. Generally, empiric antibiotic therapy is only recommended for a select group of patients suffering from severe sepsis and septic shock, community-acquired pneumonia, ...
Thirty-four drugs, including some anti-infectives such as Ivermectin, Mupirocin and Nicotine Replacement Therapy, have been added to the National List of Essential Medicines taking the total drugs under it to 384. Several antibiotics, vaccines and anti-cancer drugs will become more affordable by their addition to the list. However, 26 drugs such as Ranitidine, Sucralfate, white petrolatum, Atenolol and Methyldopa have been deleted from the revised list. The deletion has been done based on the parameters of cost effectiveness and availability of better drugs. Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya, who released the list on Tuesday, tweeted, "Released the National List of Essential Medicines 2022.It comprises 384 drugs across 27 categories.Several antibiotics, vaccines, anti-cancer drugs and many other important drugs will become more affordable & reduce patients' out-of-pocket expenditure." Endocrine medicines and contraceptives Fludrocortisone, Ormeloxifene, Insulin Glargine and
More than 47 per cent of antibiotic formulations used in India's private sector in 2019 were not approved by the central drug regulator, according to a study published in The Lancet Regional Health-Southeast Asia. The research also found that Azithromycin 500mg tablet was the most consumed antibiotic formulation (7.6 per cent) in India, followed by cefixime 200 mg tablet (6.5 per cent) during the year. The researchers at Boston University, US and Public Health Foundation of India, New Delhi, examined the private sector antibiotic use, which contributes to 8590 per cent of the total consumption in India. The data were gathered from a panel of 9,000 stockists who store products from approximately 5,000 pharmaceutical companies. However, these data did not include the drugs dispensed through public facilities, though this is less than 1520 per cent of all drug sales in the country as per studies and national health accounts estimates. The researchers found a lower consumption rate of