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Mathematics Undergraduate @ Trinity College, University of Cambridge
I'm Shaurya Agrawal, a first-year undergraduate mathematician at Trinity College, Cambridge. I love Biology and am seriously considering working in Biosecurity or Biotechnology as a career.
In the past, I've been successful at Mathematical and Science Olympiads and the JEE, completed the Non-Trivial Fellowship and the BlueDot Pandemics Course, done an internship on the clinical trials framework, and taught underprivileged children through an NGO.
Thanks. Could you please share the policies you mention?
Do you also plan to try to tackle the problem of antibiotic overdose, which also leads to AMR, and is especially rampant in India?
For any illness, bacterial or not, doctors in India typically prescribe antibiotics. The reasons for this are largely social; an antibiotic serves to eliminate any bacterial disease if somehow undiagnosed, and patients typically recover from their illnesses within the prescription period, so the doctor is judged "good" by patients. This increases the reputation and hence income of the doctor. Pharmaceutical companies reinforce this system, providing incentives to doctors for them to prescribe their antibiotics.
This ecosystem would continue to pose significant risks even if novel and better antibiotics are developed, and then made available and affordable in LMICs like India.