Too many drugs, too few cures

Ria Pane took her 7-year-old daughter Kezia to a doctor in Jakarta to check on her fever and sore throat, and was prescribed seven drugs, including antibiotics and medicine to prevent febrile seizures.

Experts say it was another classic, but only too common, case of over-medication, or prescribing drugs patients do not need. Here, the antibiotic was unnecessary, as was the drug to prevent febrile seizures, as the child had no history of such attacks, said several pharmacists and doctors.

Experts warn that driven by profits from selling medicine, some doctors from Jakarta to Hong Kong are over-prescribing medicines, a practice they say will be disastrous in the longer term.