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16/11/2012
Antibiotic Resistance Increasing At 'Alarming Rate'
Antibiotics are losing their effectiveness at an alarming rate due to overuse, the chief medical officer warns.
Dame Sally Davies has said that more people could die from routine medical procedures such as heart surgery unless doctors and patients change their habits to tackle growing antibiotic resistance.
Patients need to stop using antibiotics to tackle mild infections, she says, adding: "Antibiotics are losing their effectiveness at a rate that is alarming and irreversible – similar to global warming."
Without a major drop in antibiotic use, more people with hard-to-treat infections such as multi-resistant E coli may die, and an untreatable form of gonorrhoea may spread as cures for infection disappear. The lack of new antibiotics in development threatens to compound the problem, Davies adds.
Most coughs, sore throats and cases of sinusitis and earache get better without antibiotics, according to advice from the Health Protection Agency. Patients should stop expecting their GP to give them antibiotics for such illnesses because that puts doctors under pressure to prescribe them unnecessarily, said Dr Cliodna McNulty, a microbiologist at the HPA. The Royal College of GPs has updated its members on ways of reducing antibiotic use.
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Dame Sally Davies has said that more people could die from routine medical procedures such as heart surgery unless doctors and patients change their habits to tackle growing antibiotic resistance.
Patients need to stop using antibiotics to tackle mild infections, she says, adding: "Antibiotics are losing their effectiveness at a rate that is alarming and irreversible – similar to global warming."
Without a major drop in antibiotic use, more people with hard-to-treat infections such as multi-resistant E coli may die, and an untreatable form of gonorrhoea may spread as cures for infection disappear. The lack of new antibiotics in development threatens to compound the problem, Davies adds.
Most coughs, sore throats and cases of sinusitis and earache get better without antibiotics, according to advice from the Health Protection Agency. Patients should stop expecting their GP to give them antibiotics for such illnesses because that puts doctors under pressure to prescribe them unnecessarily, said Dr Cliodna McNulty, a microbiologist at the HPA. The Royal College of GPs has updated its members on ways of reducing antibiotic use.
(H)
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