Daily Times

We cannot ignore the elephant in the room any longer. The world is facing an antibiotic emergency as drug-resistant superbugs keep emerging to endanger populations from extremely common, preventable and formerly treatable health ailments.

However, as global leaders are all set to come together at the UN summit to contemplate the best possible way to reverse this alarming trend, ripple effects have already begun to torment the likes of Pakistan whose measly public health system is perpetually under strain from a variety of water and vector-borne diseases. The latest disaster to hit headlines is a rising wave of drug-resistant typhoid, which can no longer be treated with a set of pills.

The most apparent reasons are the lack of access to safe water and an unsanitary environment. Considering how Pakistan fares nearly the worst in the region when it comes to the incidence of drug-resistant strains–having had 15,000 “reported” cases since 2016, it would only take a single tank of contaminated water to result in a severe endemic public health problem. More worryingly, children remain at the highest risk and are being said to develop fatal complications.

The most ideal solution would envisage access to clean drinking water across the length and breadth of the country so that countless children are spared from the tragic ordeal of making repeated visits to emergency rooms; the situation becomes almost catastrophic in far-flung areas where hospitals are a luxury.

However, to pop the wishful thinking, reality dictates that we live in a country where untreated sewage meanders across channels to mix with freshwater, and therefore, the onus to protect ourselves is largely dependent on one’s buying capacity. Because vaccinations are, at least until now, proving to be effective against the superbug, it can only be hoped that the authorities would build on the successes of Sindh’s extensive campaign to administer conjugate vaccines that offer improved protection for four to five years in the northern provinces where the infection seems to be spreading fast. *