HYDERABAD: As the winter season approaches, water intake among denizens reduces considerably. This, coupled with the fact that people, especially women, working as bus conductors, manual labourers and municipality cleaning staff often do not have access to clean drinking water, puts them at high risk of getting recurrent Urinary Tract Infections (UTI) -- which can even turn life-threatening in some cases.
Global experts, speaking at a urogynecology conference in the city, claimed that one of the main causes of recurrent Urinary Tract Infection is resistance to the antibiotic medication that are administered in high dosages. Microbial cultures to test for drug resistance is the need of the hour, they said.
Speaking to Express, Dr Anuradha Koduri, organising secretary of Urogynecology Pelvic Floor Dysfunction Incontinence Association, explained, “Resistance to antibiotics can be blamed on both the doctor and the patient. Doctors prescribe high dosage of antibiotics without thinking about the consequences, and the patient adds to it by not completing the antibiotic course.”
She further added, “Any hospital worth its salt will know which drugs and antibiotics the immediate population is resistant to, through constant tests by their microbiology department.” Dr Manjula Rao, another senior gynaecologist, said, “Usually three urinary tract infections in a span of three months is a good enough number to prescribe an antibiotic resistance test.”