Action Required On 'Wasted' Antibiotics

The HSE is launching a campaign to raise awareness on the correct use of antibiotics, the executive announced on Friday.

The message of the campaign is that antibiotics are "wasted on colds and flu", a HSE spokesman said. The announcement comes as November 18 marks the fourth European Antibiotic Awareness day with the aim of emphasising the importance of only taking antibiotics when they are really needed and encouraging people to follow their doctors’ and pharmacists’ instructions on how to take them appropriately.

According to the executive, taking antibiotics when they aren’t needed means that they won’t work when you really need them for a serious infection, while taking antibiotics for a viral illness, such as a cold or flu, is of no benefit to the patient and is a waste.

Dr. Fidelma Fitzpatrick, Consultant Microbiologist and HSE Clinical Lead for the Prevention of Healthcare-associated Infection, said: “Antibiotics have revolutionised the way we treat patients with bacterial infections and have saved many lives since their introduction in the middle of the last century. However antibiotics are sometimes taken unnecessarily for infections such as colds and flu where they have absolutely no benefit for the individual.

"Using antibiotics when we don’t really need them leads to the person building up a resistance to antibiotics: when they really need an antibiotic for a serious illness, an antibiotic may not work."

She said that more and more antibiotics are being used each year in Ireland and are seeing more infections caused by antibiotic resistant bacteria (such as S. pneumonia, a cause of pneumonia and meningitis) or infections due to antibiotics (such as Clostridium difficile infection) as a result.

"We need to wage a war on the growing resistance to antibiotics, otherwise we will be back to an era where people become gravely ill or die because we have run out of effective antibiotics. If we don’t take action now, we risk wasting one of the most important medical advances of the past 100 years,” Ms Fitzpatrick added.

In a statement from the HSE on Friday, a spokesman said that wasting antibiotics was a waste of a "precious life saving resource", and that if antibiotics were taken when they are not needed, it enables bacteria to become resistant to antibiotics.

"The bacteria are no longer killed by the antibiotics and this leads to more serious infections. This means that antibiotics may not work for infections where they are really needed such as blood stream infections and pneumonia. The bacteria are developing resistance faster than we can develop new antibiotics; we are running out of antibiotics."

The HSE said it was working with a range of partners in Ireland and across Europe to deliver a concerted effort to tackle inappropriate antibiotic use.

The Irish College of General Practitioners, Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and the Irish Pharmacy Union have all contributed to the development of the awareness campaign.

(DW)