THE MAGIC BULLET'S TOLL

What if a saviour turns into a killer? After 80 years of use, overuse and abuse of antibiotics—termed magic bullets—microbes have become resistant to them. Antibiotic resistant diseases are undoing the great strides in modern treatment. VIBHA VARSHNEY exposes a growing public health crisis

IN RURAL and urban markets of Nigeria, antibiotics are sold openly and without any prescription by hundreds of vendors such as Sadiq Abdullahi in Kpana Market in Utako district of Abuja. Abdullahi sells antibiotics like amoxicillin, ciprofloxacin, metronidazole, penicillin and clindamycin. It’s an open, hot and filthy outlet. People crowd his shop as he sells these antibiotics at prices much lower than those of the registered pharmacy.

Vendors like Sadiq Abdullahi do not ask customers for prescriptions and sell any amount of antibiotics, disregarding treatment guidelines. Abdullahi sources his drugs from sellers based on the outskirts of Abuja. But these medicines do not even have the mandatory codes for verification of the country’s National Agency for Food and Drug Administration. Despite his lack of medical qualification, Abdullahi is willing to sell antibiotics to Jumai Abdullahi, a young woman who believes—without medical diagnosis—that she is suffering from typhoid. She represents what is emerging as one of the major reasons for abuse of antibiotics—self-medication. But self-medication is only one of the many ways antibiotics are being misused and this is leading to resistance in microbes.