Drug-resistant infections drive demand for Rs 20 lakh antibiotic in Hyderabad hospitals

Growing antimicrobial resistance is forcing Hyderabad hospitals to rely on expensive last-line antibiotics such as Fetroja (cefiderocol) to treat multidrug-resistant infections. Doctors warn that antibiotic misuse is fuelling superbugs, leaving patients with limited treatment options and treatment costs exceeding Rs 20 lakh.

Hyderabad: With patients developing resistance to older classes of antibiotics, clinicians are quickly running out of treatment options, forcing hospitals to import exorbitantly expensive, last-line drugs to tackle drug-resistant infections, exposing patients to a lot of financial distress. A case in point is the extremely expensive last line antibiotic Fetroja Cefiderocol for treatment of New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase (NDM), strains that are increasingly becoming common in tertiary care hospitals of Hyderabad and other parts of the country.

A recent video about the non-availability of Fetroja Cefiderocol on the shelves of medical shops in India, posted by a clinician on social media, highlighted the importance of proper antibiotic use and the need to make such critical drugs more accessible and affordable

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With cases of resistance to NDM strains becoming common, the demand for Fetroja Cefiderocol has increased. It turns out that the drug is the last-line of defense against aggressive, multidrug-resistant NDM bacterial strains that no longer respond to older classes of antibiotics.

The doctor went on to talk about the huge financial implications of affording Fetroja. Individual one gram vials of Fetroja cost around Rs 35,000 per unit. With standard critical care protocols requiring 6 grams daily over a 10-day treatment course, overall expenses on patients will be upwards of Rs 20 lakh.

The demand for such highly expensive, last-line drugs is on the rise because of widespread antimicrobial resistance (AMR), which has turned common or hospital-acquired bacterial strains into untreatable ‘superbugs’.

When conventional antibiotics fail completely, doctors have to turn to specialized iron-binding cephalosporins like Cefiderocol to treat patients.

Specialists point out that the misuse and overuse of antibiotics has allowed bacteria to outpace modern medicine, resulting in dangerous infections that fail to respond to available treatments.