Battling The Overuse Of Antibiotics

Brett Smith for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Public health officials have been warning for years about the overuse of antibiotics and a new report from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is calling for the more judicious use of the bacteria-battling drugs.

In the report, which was published in the journal Pediatrics, scientists from the AAP’s Committee on Infectious Diseases noted many children and adults are given antibiotics for symptoms caused by viruses. This practice boosts the risk of fostering antibiotic-resistant bacteria without providing much benefit.

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are a significant public health threat as they infect over 2 million Americans each year, resulting in about 23,000 deaths – according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While antibiotics are designed to kill bacteria, some are able to survive the drugs, and these survivors pass their resistance along to future generations of bacteria that then multiply.

When an infection does call for antibiotics, the AAP committee said doctors should prescribe amoxicillin by itself or amoxicillin with clavulanate, notably for children with ear infections and sinusitis. For strep throat, the AAP panel said doctors should prescribe amoxicillin or penicillin. They added broad-spectrum antibiotics are more likely to foster the growth of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

“You want to use the antibiotic that has the narrowest spectrum, meaning it will kill the germs that are causing the infections but not have collateral damage on all the other bacteria within our bodies,” antibiotics expert Theoklis Zaoutis, from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told Reuters Health.

To mark European Antibiotic Awareness Day on Monday, officials from Public Health England and the Royal College of General Practitioners spoke out against the ‘prevailing myth’ that green phlegm is a sign of a bacterial infection. Both institutions said green phlegm and runny noses are both caused by viral infections.

According to research from Public Health England, 40 percent of people they surveyed said antibiotics would help a cold if the phlegm was green and “very few” said the same for clear-colored phlegm.

“It’s a prevailing myth that anyone with green phlegm or snot needs a course of antibiotics to get better,” Dr. Cliodna McNulty, from Public Health England, told BBC News. “Most of the infections that generate lots of phlegm and snot are viral illnesses and will get better on their own although you can expect to feel pretty poorly for a few weeks.

“The problems of antibiotic resistance are growing,” she added. “Everyone can help by not using antibiotics for the treatment of uncomplicated infections.”

“Overuse of antibiotics is a serious public health concern,” added Dr. Maureen Baker, chairwoman of the Royal College of General Practitioners in the UK. “Infections adapt to antibiotics used to kill them and can ultimately make treatment ineffective so it’s crucial that antibiotics are used appropriately.”

To mark the 6th European Antibiotic Awareness Day, the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control is releasing European data on incidence of antibiotic resistance and the results of a survey of public health experts from 38 countries.