KARACHI - About 40 per cent Karachi-based dentists are not aware about the latest antibiotics, according to a survey conducted at the Department of Microbiology, Karachi University (KU). Therefore, the dentists prescribe the outdated prescriptions that have lost their efficacy and to whom the deadly bugs of mouth have already developed resistance. The survey also points out that 49 per cent of the dentists are responsible for spreading various infections as they use contaminated surgical tools owing to the lack of autoclave facility. The survey reveals that around 50 per cent such dentists are not aware of the burning issue of antibiotic resistance, which is defined as the ability of a micro-organism to withstand the effects of antibiotics. Sikandar K Sherwani, a PhD scholar, has conducted the survey entitled "Dentist's Views about Oral Hygiene and emerging Anti-microbial Resistance in the oral pathogens" under the supervision of Prof Dr Shahana Urooj Kazmi, KU Dean, Faculty of Science in collaboration of Pakistan Society for Microbiology (PSM). Talking to The Nation on Thursday, Sikandar K Sherwani said that the main motive of the survey was to evaluate the awareness of the dentists about oral hygiene and the anti-microbial resistance, which is a burning question in the world of microbiology. He said, "One of the important reasons of this lack of information among such medics is that dentists do not keep themselves in touch with the latest literature of the pharmaceutics. Because of the resistance, bacteria survive and continue to multiply and cause more harm. In this survey, 20 per cent of ceramists are also found performing the jobs of dentists and prescribing irrelevant and unnecessary antibiotics and thus aggravate this nuisance of antibiotic resistance." The most interesting thing that is noticed in the survey is that the knowledge of oral hygiene as well as prescription strategy is extremely poor among the dentists that reside in the areas where poor people live like Landhi, Orangi and others. These so-called dentists are also mainly involved in be-fooling the people. More than 65 per cent of the dentists in these poverty-stricken areas prefer to extract out the teeth in first attempt without any prophylactic therapy of antibiotics. More than 80 per cent dentists believe to prescribe penicillin in most of the surgical procedures. Only 40 per cent were found to prescribe antibiotic before and after the surgical or extraction procedures. In a special visit to Saddar area, quacks were found to be the real culprits, a hidden aspect of this story, mainly responsible to aggravate this menace just extracting out the teeth in just 25 rupees. Particularly, a queue of so-called dentists located in the Ranchore Lane, Tower area is the black sheep of the society and cast the slur upon the prestige of the dentistry community. This is so alarming, as one of the most important concepts in drug designing, however, the latest one, pharmacogenomics (the drug prescription according to the genetic make-up of an individual), is nearly not known at all by any of the dentist in this survey." The research strongly suggested that in the light of the study the proper guidelines for the current status as well as prescription strategies must be taught at the graduation level of BDS courses. "Microbiology as well as anti-microbial subjects must be introduced in different years of medical education. Dentists ought to be encouraged to develop interaction with microbiologists for further information of antibiotics developing good oral hygienic values," he added.