Children are still too often and unnecessarily treated with antibiotics, according to the results of a new study published in the medical journal Pediatrics. These ineffective prescriptions remain stable from year to year despite the recommendations of the public health authorities and become a real problem.
Researchers from the Seattle Children’s Hospital (Washington State, United States) conducted a meta-analysis on studies carried out between 2000 and 2011 on the prescription of antibiotics in ENT to children.
Scientists found that acute ear or respiratory tract infections were bacterial in 27% of cases. Yet doctors prescribed antibiotics in 57% of consultations. However, when infections are viral, antibiotics are ineffective. They also noticed that despite the recommendations of the public authorities, prescriptions for antibiotics are still prescribed by doctors.
Antibiotic resistance, a public health problem
“Whenever antibiotics are used in any setting, bacteria evolve to develop resistance. This process can occur at an alarming rate,” said Steve Solomon, director of the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Americans (CDC). “These drugs are a precious and limited resource, the more we use antibiotics today, the less likely we are to have effective antibiotics tomorrow.” Resistance to antibiotics kills 23,000 people in the United States and costs the community $ 35 billion.
Antibiotic resistance is on the rise for many different pathogenic bacteria that pose health threats. “If we don’t act now, our medicine cabinet will be empty and we won’t have the antibiotics we need to save lives,” CDC Director Tom Frieden said last year.
WHO is alarmed
“If we do not take meaningful steps to better prevent infections but also to change the way we produce, prescribe and use antibiotics, we will gradually lose these benefits for global public health and the consequences will be devastating, “said Keiji Fukuda, Assistant Director General of the World Health Organization, for health security.
