The rainy season has a familiar medical routine: someone develops a fever, someone else recommends an antibiotic, and within hours a strip of tablets appears on the kitchen counter. But doctors say this seemingly harmless habit can backfire. Monsoon fevers can be caused by several different infections, including dengue, chikungunya, malaria, typhoid, influenza and leptospirosis.

The problem is that antibiotics do not work against every one of them. In fact, taking antibiotics when they are not needed can create another health problem: antimicrobial resistance (AMR).

It is like trying to fix a Wi-Fi problem by changing the car's engine oil. The medicine may be real, but it is solving an entirely different problem. Dr Goyal says this habit of self-medicating is common during the monsoon.

Patients sometimes arrive after taking antibiotics on their own for a week. By then, the doctor isn't simply treating the original illness. They also have to work around the effects of medication that may never have been necessary in the first place.

Dengue and chikungunya are transmitted by mosquitoes and have no bacterial component that antibiotics can target. So if someone develops fever along with symptoms such as a rash or joint pain, the answer should not automatically be an antibiotic.

Dr Goyal says such symptoms should prompt appropriate testing for conditions such as dengue or chikungunya. The first job is to find out what is causing the fever. Only then can the right treatment begin.

Not every fever is viral. Some infections, including typhoid, are bacterial and may require antibiotics. But that does not mean taking any antibiotic from the medicine cabinet is a good idea.

Dr Goyal points out that prescribing the wrong antibiotic — or starting the right antibiotic too early, before proper diagnosis — can mask symptoms, make accurate testing more difficult and contribute to antimicrobial resistance.

In other words, even when an antibiotic is eventually required, guessing the antibiotic is not the same as treating the infection.

Source: etvbharat