Antibiotic resistance threatens public health

Doctors depend on antibiotics to treat illnesses caused by bacteria, ranging from pneumonia to meningitis. In recent years the effectiveness of many antibiotics has begun to wane, the legacy of decades of unnecessary overuse in both human medicine and agriculture. The Czech Republic is one of the countries which are contributing to this dangerous trend.

It is the same every winter. Viral and flu epidemics fill doctors' waiting rooms and many patients who come to seek help expect to get a prescription for antibiotics. They leave feeling cheated if their GP just prescribes rest and hot tea. Many patients actually ask for antibiotics - even suggesting which brand works for them best, the result of years of misuse when antibiotics were used as a preventive measure against bacterial infections. Dr. Vlastimil Jindrak heads the national programme for antibiotics policy whose main goal is to reverse this dangerous trend:

"Sometimes parents want their sick children to be treated with antibiotics and for doctors it is not always easy to explain to them that this is really not necessary. Sometimes doctors are afraid that they could lose their patients by refusing to give them the antibiotics they ask for because it is easy for parents to take their child to another physician who will comply."

Doctors also say they are under pressure from pharmaceutical companies, is that correct?

"Yes, I absolutely agree with you that the pressure and marketing strategy of the pharmaceutical industry is really very strong and very specific I must say in the Czech Republic. Especially in the 90s it was a completely new situation for us to communicate with representatives of the pharmaceutical industry."

The overuse of antibiotics in recent decades has resulted in a sharp rise in antimicrobial resistance, in other words -many antibiotics are no longer effective and illnesses which were considered easily curable may once again become life-threatening. There is now a network of antibiotics centres across the Czech Republic which cooperate closely with GPs and specialists, monitoring antibiotics prescriptions and giving doctors important feedback on the effects of overuse. However there is another important aspect to be considered - the amount of antibiotics that we get from the food chain. Dr. Jindrak again:

"I think that about 50 percent of the total consumption of antibiotics - total exposure to antibiotics - is associated with their usage in animals. We have evidence that there is a transmission of resistance bacteria from animals to humans. That is really dangerous and it is necessary to intervene in both types of antibiotic usage."

Do we have sufficient laws to control this?

"I think that the situation is now much better, maybe due to our accession to the EU because the laws and requirements in the EU effectively target this problem."