Unregulated use of antibiotics in Siliguri city vis-a-vis occurrence of MAR bacteria in community waste water and river Mahananda, and their potential for resistance gene transfer.

The unregulated use of antibiotics, including therapeutic and prophylactic prescribing, in the fastest growing city of West Bengal, Siliguri, was studied indirectly from a random survey conducted on retail medicine sellers at their counters. Ciprofloxacin, ampicillin, norfioxacin and amoxycillin were the highest retailed antibiotics and 58% of the city pharmacies sold antibiotics even without prescriptions. To understand the influence of the extent of antibiotic use by the community on the collective bacterial flora in the aquatic environment, we have determined the fraction(s) of Standard Plate Count (SPC) bacteria resistant to different antibiotics and multiple antibiotic resistance (MAR) profile of resistant SPC isolates from two municipal open drains and Mahananda river water samples of Siliguri.