November 18, 2016.
On the occasion of World Antibiotic Use Week, specialists are meeting to encourage doctors to limit the use of this type of treatment by resorting to diagnostic tests.
Antibiotic resistance is claiming more and more victims
Antibiotic resistance is a scourge in which health authorities are beginning to take a close interest, as studies on the subject have multiplied in recent years. More and more bacteria are becoming resistant to these treatments and prescribing an antibiotic against a common infection may now be unnecessary in some patients.
From their practice, doctors are not helpless in the face of this resistance since they now have a simple way to verify the resistance to the treatments of their patients. Rapid diagnostic tests are now used to determine whether the origin of the patient’s infection can be treated without antibiotics. For a given disease, this test will verify, in two hours, the viral or microbial origin of the infection.. In case of viral disease, and therefore impossible to treat with antibiotics, the doctor may resort to an alternative treatment.
Only 30% of doctors would use this type of test today
On the occasion of the World Week for the Good Use of Antibiotics, a group of doctors, members of the LIEN association, has just published a white paper in which they encourage doctors to use this type of test more frequently, which only 30% of practitioners would currently use.
Faced with the danger posed today by the threat of antibiotic resistance, these doctors encourage doctors to use antibiotics as little as possible, but also patients to have more confidence in the other treatments that could be prescribed to them. ” Faced with the refusal of their doctor, some patients will consult other doctors until the moment when one cracks. As a patient, we cannot have a consumer gaze », Explains Alain-Michel Ceretti, honorary president and founder of the association for the Pourquoi Docteur site. ” Since the 1960s, doctors have accustomed generations of patients to taking antibiotics, even when they were not needed. These bad habits have encouraged the massive use of these drugs and created antibiotic resistance. A phenomenon that continues “.
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