The Department of Health has launched a second public education campaign, at a cost of 700,000, to highlight the dangers of using antibiotics unnecessarily.
Essentially, antibiotics are very important drugs designed to treat specific illnesses such as pneumonia and meningitis, said Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr Pat Troop at the launch of the campaign last month. But some antibiotics are becoming less effective at fighting those infections and if we continue to use them inappropriately, more bacteria will become resistant to them.
Although most people realise that antibiotics do not work for colds, the fact that they do not work for the majority of coughs and sore throats is less well known, he said.
Mothers of young children are among the most likely to press GPs for antibiotics. But after the last education campaign in the autumn of 1999, out of a sample of 1,600, only 27 per cent expected antibiotics for a child with a bad cough, compared with 40 per cent beforehand.
The number of antibiotics prescribed by GPs fell 19 per cent between 1997 and 1999. Whether the trend is mirrored in hospitals is unknown. The House of Lords Science and Technology Committees key report on antibiotics - one of two that led to the public campaign - states that the reason for this is because data on drug use in hospitals is unsatisfactory. However, all NHS Trusts are now required to have a formal prescribing policy.
Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin, the first antibiotic, in 1928 when he noticed that bacteria would not grow on a culture medium accidentally contaminated with a mould. But it was not until 1941 that the first patients were treated with the drug. Since then many other antibiotics have been developed but an increasing number of bacteria have become resistant to them.
A recent study of 461 pre-school children in Canberra, Australia, found that the like-lihood of children carrying penicillin-resistant bacteria had been doubled in those who had taken an antibiotic in the pre- vious two months.
- Leaflets and posters for nurseries are available free on 020 7972 5268 or e-mail vince.vas@doh.gsi.gov.uk
