Addicted to antibiotics? The cold facts
Half of people who visit their GPs with prolonged colds or coughs expect antibiotics – even though they often do not work. Channel 4 News takes a look at advice from the experts.
Do you know the average cold lasts a week and a half? Or that you can feel fatiged after flu for up to three weeks?
These are the kind of basic facts the Health Protection Agency (HPA) is trying to publicise ahead of winter.
A new leaflet has been designed so patients have a better understanding of common ailments and are less likely to demand antibiotics when they visit the doctor.
For example, you may think that bronchitis should always be treated with antibiotics, but this is not the case. Doctors say it is more important to rest and take plenty of fluids and use paracetamol or ibuprofen to relieve headaches, fever, aches and pains.
“A lot of people with coughs, colds and flu still visit the doctor expecting to be given antibiotics for their treatment and it can be difficult for the doctor to refuse,” said Dr Cliodna McNulty, from the HPA.
Antibiotics are losing their effectiveness at a rate that is both alarming and irreversible – similar to global warming. Professor Dame Sally Davies
“This expectation puts a lot of pressure on the doctor to prescribe antibiotics which is often not necessary and causes increased antimicrobial resistance in the long run.
“Bacteria will always adapt to try and survive the effects of the antibiotic and we have seen that the problem of resistance is growing.”
Antibiotics facts: (source HPA)
Antibiotics revolutionised medicine - Some medical procedures, such as transplants, would have been unthinkable without antibiotics as the risk of infection is too high.
Some antibiotics have already been lost to resistance - Penicillin is no longer effective for staphylococcal wound infections, ampicillin (a form of penicillin) is no longer used for infections of the urinary tract. Many more are under threat.
New antibiotics are hard to find and to licence - New antibiotics are less profitable than treatments for chronic diseases, and much of the pharmaceutical industry now concentrates on other areas of medicine.
We are now using our reserve antibiotics - Rises in resistance like those seen for E. coli force doctors to use carbapenems, which were previously the reserve antibiotics for use when other treatments had failed.
‘Great threat to modern health’
The Department of Health’s Chief Medical Officer, Professor Dame Sally Davies, said antibiotic resistance is one of the greatest threats to modern health.
She said: “Antibiotics are losing their effectiveness at a rate that is both alarming and irreversible – similar to global warming.
“I urge patients and prescribers to think about the drugs they are requesting and dispensing.
“Bacteria are adapting and finding ways to survive the effects of antibiotics, ultimately becoming resistant so they no longer work. And the more you use an antibiotic, the more bacteria become resistant to it.”