Kiambu County Level 5 Hospital will be carrying out an intense one on one patient education exercise on use of antimicrobials.
Speaking to KNA today Dr. Cynthia Nduta in charge of Pharmacy area at the Kiambu county hospital said that many people misuse antimicrobials namely antibiotics, antifungals and antivirals which end up killing or stopping growth of the wanted microorganisms in the human body.
“In the recent past we’ve had to deal with many cases of infectious diseases such as pneumonia, meningitis, urinary tract infections caused by varied bacteria, fungi mainly because most patients’ systems are already resistant when we prescribe some specific antimicrobials”, she said.
Nduta urged Kiambu residents to stop misusing antimicrobials in their day to day lives as their frequent uptake causes resistance to diseases which trickles its effect to making treating illnesses more difficult.
She however confirmed that efforts are already in place within the hospital as they keep on informing patients about the proper usage and uptake of any antimicrobials in treating infections to avoid the organisms developing some kind of resistance within the body.
“We would like to caution the public to stop purchasing these drugs over the counter without any prescription and more so all chemist owners running businesses should be conscious of how they handle customers who buy from them with no single evidence of a prescription note,” Nduta reiterated.
She said it was important for citizens to visit a health facility and first seek medical guidance from a doctor before buying medicines.
As Kiambu County Level 5 Hospital continues to create more awareness to its patients about antimicrobial resistance while marking the World Antimicrobial Awareness Week, the county health facility hopes for an improvement in the prescription patterns of antimicrobials not only for the public but also among healthcare workers.
The World Antimicrobial Awareness Week 2021- Kiambu County Edition is running till Wednesday 24th November under the theme “Spread herd Awareness, Stop Resistance”
By Jackline Kidaha and Wangari Ndirangu
