Materia Medica Malaysiana

Prescribe high-end medication rationally, advises ministry: "KUALA LUMPUR: The Health Ministry has cautioned medical practitioners in the country against randomly prescribing high-end antibiotics to patients and reminded them to adhere to guidelines on their use.
Health deputy director-general Datuk Dr Ismail Merican urged doctors and specialists to use such antibiotics “rationally” to prevent anti-microbial resistance occurring in patients – a situation where microbes become resistant to specific medicines and develop ways of surviving the use of medications meant to kill or weaken them.
Speaking to reporters yesterday after opening the Infection Control Seminar at Pantai Medical Centre, he said an antibiotic audit carried out by him on local hospitals showed that “quite a lot” of doctors, especially those in the “higher structure,” did not adhere to guidelines on the use of antibiotics provided by the ministry and Malaysian Medical Academy.
Hospital Kuala Lumpur infectious disease unit head and senior consultant physician Dr Christopher Lee said that as opposed to first generation antibiotics such as penicillin, bactrim and tetracycline, high-end antibiotics were those which worked against a broad spectrum of organisms such as carbatenems, third and fourth generation cethalostorin and quinolones.
“When you have such a wide spectrum, there is collateral damage when fairly friendly organisms are also killed. "