“Antibiotics, if they are used wrongly, they will become less strong”: with this new message, Health Insurance is back in the campaign on the proper use of antibiotics because, since 2007, there has been a resumption of the consumption of antibiotics in France, while this consumption had decreased since 2002, the date of the first information campaigns on the theme “antibiotics are not automatic”.
“Since the implementation of the program to educate the public and health professionals on the proper use of antibiotics, 40 million prescriptions have been avoided, the equivalent of an entire winter of prescriptions” we explain. to health insurance. “But in 2009 we recorded a particularly strong increase: our consumption of antibiotics per person and per year is also the highest in Europe, behind Greece”.
In France, in 2009, viral infections (such as bronchitis, nasopharyngitis and flu-like illness) and angina accounted for more than 40% of antibiotic prescriptions made in town by general practitioners and specialists. “Yet the
antibiotics do not work on viruses; they are therefore useless in the treatment of these infections.” Among viral infections, acute bronchitis is the one most often treated with antibiotics (76%) while the Afssaps indicates that antibiotics are useless in adults in good health.
The new Health Insurance campaign intends to recall the official recommendations on respiratory infections and to recall that antibiotics do not heal faster.
And to treat your bronchitis without antibiotics, follow the advice of Topsante.com