Dhaka, Oct. 21 -- The modern miracle of antibiotics once transformed the course of medicine.

What was once fatal became curable, and the world entered an age where infections could be subdued with a few pills. In Bangladesh, that miracle is now fading fast.

Several widely used antibiotics have lost up to 97 percent of their effectiveness, according to a recent global report. Behind this alarming decline lies a national pattern of misuse, negligence, and regulatory paralysis.

For decades, antibiotics in Bangladesh have been treated as ordinary commodities.

They are sold in open markets and pharmacies without prescriptions, prescribed unnecessarily by doctors, and consumed indiscriminately by the public.

The problem is widespread and d...