By Jaspal Singh, jaspal@nst.com.my
Page 14, Saturday, February 28, 2004 NEW STRAITS TIMES ( Malaysia)
Ipoh, Fri. - Malaysians should educate themselves on antibiotics and their harnful side-effects in the treatment of ailments such as the common sore throat. Ipoh Hospital's orthopaedic unit head Datuk R. Ramanathan said today the public, and even some medical practitioners, were not aware that 85 per cent of common sore throat ailments were caused by viruses and that antibiotics were helpless against them.
Only 15 per cent of the common sore throat was bacterial-related.
These antibiotics, he said, could be more harmful to humans as they kill some of the normal throat bacteria, allowing other bacteria to dominate and cause a severe infection by disturbing the delicate balance.
" Indeed, so widely is the prescription practised around the world that the Atlanta-based Centre for Disease Control in the United States declared that one of the most pressing public health problem in the 21st century is ' the abuse of the antibiotics ' ," he said after the opening of the 4th National Conference on Infection and Infection Control by Raja Muda Perak Raja Dr. Nazrin Shah here.
The three-day conference is organised by the postgraduate Medical Education Society of Ipoh Hospital and attended bny about 500 participants nationwide. Dr. Ramanathan, who is organing chairman, said the Malaysian public was quite ill-informed on the side-effects of consuming an antibiotics in the long run especially on internal organs such as the lung, liver and kidneys.
He said other complications may arise when septicaemia, a condition where infection has spread into the blood stream, occurred in the body.
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