WHO: Misunderstanding of Antibiotics
Fuels Superbug Threat
FILE
- А microbiologist reads a panel to check on a bacterium's resistance to an
antibiotic in а lab at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
Nov. 25, 2013, in Atlanta, Georgia.
People across the world are alarmingly confused about the
role of antibiotics and the right way to take them, and this ignorance is
fueling the rise of drug-resistant superbugs, the World Health Organization
said on Monday.
"The rise of antibiotic resistance is a global health crisis," WHO
Director-General Margaret Chan told reporters in a tele-briefing from the
organization's Geneva headquarters.
She said the problem was "reaching dangerously high
levels" in all parts of the world and could lead to "the end of
modern medicine as we know it." Antibiotic resistance happens when bacteria mutate and adapt
to become invulnerable to the antibiotics used to treat the infections they
cause. Over-use and misuse of antibiotics exacerbates the development of
drug-resistant bacteria, often called superbugs.
Baffling survey results
Publishing the results of a survey of public awareness, the
United Nations health agency said 64 percent of those asked believed wrongly
that penicillin-based drugs and other antibiotics can treat colds and flu,
despite the fact such medicines have no impact on viruses.
Around a third of people surveyed also wrongly believed they
should stop taking antibiotics when they feel better, rather than completing
the prescribed treatment course, the WHO said.
"The findings... point to the urgent need to improve
understanding around antibiotic resistance," said Keiji Fukuda, the WHO's
special representative for antimicrobial resistance.
"One of the biggest health challenges of the 21st
century will require global behavior change by individuals and societies."Superbug infections, including multi-drug-resistant typhoid,
tuberculosis and gonorrhoea, already kill hundreds of thousands of people a
year, and for now the trend is still growing.
‘Race against the pathogens’
Fukuda described it as a "race against the
pathogens", adding that if everyone steps into action now, it will
probably take five to 10 years to turn the situation around.
The WHO surveyed 10,000 people across 12 countries -
Barbados, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, Russia, Serbia,
South Africa, Sudan and Vietnam - and found many worrying misconceptions.
Three-quarters of respondents think antibiotic resistance
means the body is resistant to the drugs, for example, whereas in fact it is
the bacteria themselves that become resistant to antibiotics, and their spread
causes hard-to-treat infections. Some 66 percent believe individuals are not at risk of a
drug-resistant infection if they personally take their antibiotics as
prescribed.
And nearly half of those surveyed think drug resistance is
only a problem in people who take antibiotics often. In fact, anyone, anywhere,
of any age, can get a superbug infection.
Chan urged doctors to dissuade patients from demanding
antibiotics for infections they can't treat, and persuade them to use the drugs
strictly according to their prescription.
"Doctors need to treat antibiotics as a precious commodity”
she said.
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