New Delhi: It’s not a futuristic sci-fi plot; the superbug crisis is very real, and India is right in the eye of the storm. A growing body of research, including a recent Lancet analysis, suggests that antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections are spiralling rapidly, putting lives, healthcare systems, and public health at serious risk.
In India, the scale of the problem is staggering. According to a Lancet study, only 8% of bacterial infections in 2019 that should have been treated with powerful “last-resort” antibiotics were actually treated properly.
This isn’t because India isn’t procuring these drugs, quite the opposite. The country bought 80% of the full courses of the antibiotics studied, but most patients couldn’t access the right treatment.
The mismatch is deeply troubling: a majority of infections caused by carbapenem-resistant gram-negative (CRGN) bacteria, notoriously hard-to-treat superbugs, went untreated even when the medicines were available.
Superbugs Are Killing on a Massive Scale
The Lancet report estimates that in 2019 alone, up to 10.4 lakh (1.04 million) people in India died due to drug-resistant infections.
Add to that the fact that a large portion of sepsis-related deaths in the country can be traced back to antimicrobial resistance — around 33% of sepsis mortality is linked to these superbugs.
It’s a sobering reminder: what was once treatable is increasingly turning into a life-or-death gamble.
Why Is India So Vulnerable?
Several factors combine to make India especially exposed to this growing crisis:
Convenient Availability, Concerning Abuse
Antibiotics are typically available over the counter. People self-treat or abandon the treatment too soon – both of these practices contribute to the resistance of bacteria.
Shortcomings in Healthcare Systems and Surveillance
Not every hospital or clinic has a methodology to appropriately assess the resistant infection. The inconsistency of microbial surveillance across hospitals and clinics leads to missing many cases.
Environmental Factors
Antibiotic residues left over from pharmaceutical companies and hospital waste being dumped in water slabs lead to antibiotic residue leaching into waterways. These residual concentrations allow antibiotic-resistant bacteria to propagate and evolve in the environment.
Weak Stewardship
Even when powerful antibiotics are available, logistical or policy failures prevent them from reaching those who need them. The right drug doesn’t always reach the right patient.
Why This Matters — Urgently
If this continues, the world could move toward a post-antibiotic era, where once-easily treatable infections could once again be life-threatening. Models indicate that superbugs could kill without immediate action in a coordinated effort.
For India, this is of particular concern because so many basic procedures, surgeries, and ICU treatments could not be performed without effective antibiotics. Losing these treatments would be catastrophic.
What Can Be Done — And What Needs to Change
Here are some steps that experts and health authorities say are critical to tackling this crisis:
Improve Antimicrobial Stewardship: Ensure that antibiotics are prescribed only when necessary, and that people complete their courses.
Create Better Surveillance Systems: Invest in labs and networks to quickly and reliably identify resistant infections.
Regulate the Access to Drugs: Make it harder to purchase antibiotics over the counter, without a prescription.
Prevent Infections Before They OCCUR: Focus on sanitation, clean water, vaccination – fewer infections lead to less antibiotic use.
Promote Research: We need new antibiotics urgently, but also other approaches (like phage therapy or immunotherapies) to be able to keep up with evolving bacteria.
