NAGPUR, March 22: The excess administration of antibiotics to children may lead to resistance to these drugs and make children more vulnerable to infection.Voicing this concern, Dr N R Bhandari, member, standing committee, International Pediatric Association and advisor, International Society of Tropical Pediatrics said,``What makes the situation worse is that, infections remain the biggest killers of children in India.''Dr Bhandari, who was here to attend the installation ceremony of the Nagpur chapter of the Indian Academy of Pediatrics (IAP), told The Indian Express that the discovery of new antibiotics and marketing tactics of pharmaceutical companies has led to a situation where children are subjected to varying doses of different antibiotics at every stage in their lives.He said the drug Chloromystin, for instance, once considered to be most effective medicine against typhoid, is not effective in 90 per cent of typhoid cases, with patients having developed resistance to it.He alsocalled for judicious use of vaccines among children. He said along with antibiotics, there is a growing trend of administering vaccines to children. Although most of these vaccines are beyond the reach of the average rural Indian, ``the craze is catching on'', he said, adding vaccines for diseases such as typhoid, chicken pox and even Hepatitis B should be used selectively.Earlier, he rated infections and malnutrition as the biggest problems among Indian children. He said although malnutrition cases are on the decline, infections are still on the higher scale in the country. He said by solving the sanitation problem in the country, 70 per cent of paediatric problems could be done away with.Dr Bhandari said although infant mortality rate in the country is going down, it is still very high when compared to the rest of the world: as compared to Japan, where the figure is 3-3.5 per 1,000, it is about 72-73 per thousand in India. He held inadequate medical aid, late detection of cases due to theinaccessibility of medical aid and poor maternal health care responsible.Dispelling a myth, Dr Bhandari said that when it is suggested that the new born baby should be breast-fed and not even given water, it is meant to prevent parents from giving polluted water to children. However, some parents take the message literally, and hesitate to give the child water even in extreme cases.
