ANTIBIOTIC USAGE IN PEDIATRICS

Paediatrics is the branch of medicine dealing with the disease and disorders of children. The Paediatrics age range from 0-16 years. Drug therapy is considered to be major component of paediatric management in health care setting like hospital. Many infectious disease have been controlled in 20th century by improving living condition public health measures and with the use of anti-microbial agents. Antibiotics are the key drugs for treatment of infections and are among the most commonly prescribed drugs in paediatrics department. Many of the antibioticsare unnecessarily prescribed for viral infection such as common cold. Thus using antibiotics to treat this viral infections is considered misuse/overuse of antibiotics. According to the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NAMCS) antibiotics are 2nd leading drugs which is been prescribed or considered for treating infectious disease in children. Therefore a proper selection of antibiotics along with prescribing of appropriate dose formulation pharmacokinetics profile response and ADR must be considered very seriously otherwise they may lead to fatal effect and promote the spread of antibiotics resistance.