Antibiotic overuse

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Antibiotic Overuse Threatens Modern Medicine: Experts

By Kate Kelland

LONDON (Reuters) Nov 10 - Overuse of antibiotics in Europe is building

widespread resistance and threatening to halt vital medical treatments such as

hip replacements, intensive care for premature babies and cancer therapies,

health experts say.

Dominique Monnet of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and

Control's (ECDC) scientific advice unit said the " whole span of modern

medicine " is

under threat because bugs are become resistant to antibiotics, rendering

the drugs useless.

" If this wave of antibiotic resistance gets over us, we will not be able to

do organ transplants, hip replacements, cancer chemotherapy, intensive

care and neonatal care for premature babies, " he told reporters at a briefing.

Antibiotics are needed in all these treatments to prevent bacterial

infection. But drug-resistant bacteria are a growing problem in hospitals

worldwide, marked by the rise of methicillin-resistant Staphyloccus aureus

(MRSA)

and other multidrug resistant bacteria.

Such infections kill about 25,000 people a year in Europe and around 19,000

in the United States

On top of the risks to future treatments, Monnet said the costs of

antibiotic resistance were already hurting -- and may hit healthcare budgets

across

the European Union yet harder if the problem is not addressed.

The six most common multi-drug-resistant bacteria cause around 400,000

infections a year in Europe, killing around 25,000 people and using 2.5 million

hospital days a year.

The ECDC, which monitors and advises on disease in EU, calculates that with

a hospital day costing an average of 366 euros ($548), multidrug resistant

infections are already sucking up 900 million euros a year in extra

hospital costs, and a further 600 million euros a year in lost productivity.

" Across the European Union the number of patients infected by resistant

bacteria is increasing and that antibiotic resistance is a major threat to

public health, " the ECDC said.

Britain's government was criticised by a parliamentary committee on Tuesday

for failing to tackle the majority of hospital-acquired infections by

narrowing its focus to two high profile ones -- MRSA and Clostridium difficile.

The ECDC is planning an " antibiotic awareness " campaign on Nov. 18 to urge

doctors to stop overprescribing antibiotics.

Patients demanding antibiotics for viral infections often are not aware

that they will not work, it said, but doctors are and should stop giving in to

pressure.

Earnshaw of the ECDC's communications unit, pointed to a 2002 survey

that showed 60 percent of patients do not know that antibiotics do not work

against viruses like flu and colds.

" Patients often demand antibiotics, " she said. And doctors often think, she

said, that giving in is a quicker way to deal with a demanding patients

than persuading them otherwise.

Reuters Health Information © 2009