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doctors are needed to serve Chakaria. Currently, there are 13 doctors at Chakaria Upazila Health Complex.

“Containing AMR requires an all-out and multifaceted approach. All community clinics should have at least an assistant doctor,” said Prof MA Faiz, former director general of the DGHS.

NO LABS, PHARMACISTS IN HOSPITALS

Faiz said not having designated microbiology laboratories is a big weakness of public hospitals.

“At least all medical college hospitals [117] should have a well-equipped microbiology laboratory with the capacity to meet patients’ diagnosis needs,” Faiz said.

Echoing the same, Zakir said the existing microbiology labs at medical colleges cannot provide round-the-clock service.

Hospitals, moreover, lack antibiotic waste-management and good pharmacy practices, according to health officials.

Besides, there are no graduate pharmacists for counselling patients and auditing prescriptions.

The issue of medicine quality has not received proper attention during discussions on AMR, said experts.

“If the quality of medicines is not ensured and medicine wastes are not managed properly, only stopping irrational use will not be fruitful in containing AMR,” Mehedi Hasan, technical officer at the US Pharmacopeial Convention, Bangladesh, told The Daily Star.

Over the last three years, Fleming Fund Country Grant has supported the refurbishing of 12 microbiology labs in different hospitals and livestock research centres.

“Everything should be integrated into the system. Otherwise, nothing will make a difference,” Prof Nitish Debnath, team lead of the Fleming Fund programme in Bangladesh, told The Daily Star.

Prof Ahmedul Kabir, additional director general (administration) at the DGHS and co-chair of the national technical committee, said, “Fragmentation will not solve the problem. This is an entire system we need to work on collectively.”