Antibiotics 'not Smarties'

19 June 2014 - 02:03 By Katharine Child
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A new study strengthens arguments that vitamin D deficiency is usually the result of ill health -- not the cause of it.
A new study strengthens arguments that vitamin D deficiency is usually the result of ill health -- not the cause of it.
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It is a myth that you have to complete the course of antibiotics you have been prescribed, according to intensive care specialist and professor Guy Richards.

He said an antibiotic should be taken until a day after an infection has cleared up.

"This is usually five days."

Patients were incorrectly prescribed antibiotics for 10, 14 or 21 days, Richards said.

Consumers could protect themselves from flu without taking antibiotics.

The flu injection is the best protection, according to Richards.

"I won't let my family go a winter season without one."

He said infection control was inadequate around the world.

"Bugs don't have wings. They are spread by humans. All this hugging and kissing is not the way to greet. There is a new study showing we should greet by touching fists."

Doctors could spread bugs from stethoscopes, pens and cellphones, he said.

"That's why we wear disposable aprons in intensive-care units."

But Global Hygiene Council member Dr Kgosi Letlape said patients must take antibiotics for a minimum period: "Taking them for too short a time causes resistance."

According to a professor of clinical microbiology at Wits University, Adriano Duse, "Between 70% and 90% of antibiotics prescribed by GPs are inappropriate."

South Africa is already in the post-antibiotic era, with patients dying of drug-resistant infections.

Yet GPs continue to prescribe antibiotics - which kill only bacteria - for viral infections such as flu. Richards urged people to stop pressuring doctors to prescribe antibiotics for colds and flu.

Research by him in 2012 found that intensive-care units at private hospitals were worse than their government counterparts when it came to incorrect prescription of antibiotics.

Richards and Duse will be giving a public lecture at Wits in two weeks' time on superbugs and resistance to antibiotics.

Fake medicines fueling superbugs

Antibiotics now rank among the most counterfeited medicines in the world, feeding a global epidemic of drug-resistant superbugs.

A new surveillance and reporting programme in 80 countries, led by the World Health Organisation, shows that counterfeit antibiotics are a growing problem in all regions of the world, rivalling fake versions of Viagra.

Infections become superbugs by gaining resistance when the treatments are not strong enough to kill all of them. It's a growing problem as substandard counterfeit drugs become more prevalent.

Bloomberg

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