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GPs told to cut antibiotics use
09.11.09
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GPs are being urged to stop prescribing antibiotics for coughs and colds as overuse is increasing resistance to them, making it more difficult to tackle serious infections like hospital bugs.
The European Centre of Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) is writing to all family doctors on November 18 to warn them of the implications of routinely giving patients the drugs, the Daily Telegraph reported.
Prescribing the pills when they are not necessary is leading to a rise in the number of infections that are resistant to antibiotics, experts at the Stockholm-based centre said.
They warned that hospitals would be unable to carry out many procedures if antibiotics are powerless to protect patients from life-threatening infections.
Dominic Monnet, senior expert at the Scientific Advice unit at the ECDC, said: "If this wave of antibiotic resistance gets over us, we will not be able to do organ transplants, hip replacements, cancer chemotherapy, intensive care and neonatal care for premature babies.
"It is the whole span of modern medicine as we know it, that we will not be able to do if we lose antibiotics."
Sarah Earnshaw, of the health communications unit at the ECDC, said that GPs were often pressured by patients - especially pushy parents - to prescribe antibiotics.
She said: "Patients are often demanding antibiotics, especially parents demanding them for their children.
A Department for Health spokeswoman said: "Antibiotics don't work on colds, most coughs or sore throats.
"Using antibiotics when they are not necessary will increase resistance to them and make it difficult to treat serious bacterial infections in the future."
