Ayushman India: battling superbugs will give the nation independence from a potential health epidemic

Infections implicated by superbugs have killed more people in India than anywhere else in the world, with a mortality rate of 13 percent screamed a headline in a leading national daily last year. India is at the very epicentre of superbug-related morbidity and mortality, yet it rarely gets discussed by the polity of this country. It is rare, if not impossible, to find any articles or strong opinions expressed by senior leaders in our country.

The truth is that drug-resistant infections caused by superbugs are rampant in our country, and we are losing the battle at a very rapid rate. As a community, we have abused antibiotics by overusing them without prescriptions, filling our protein food chain with them and then dumping pharmaceutical waste from antibiotic plants into our water streams.