Community awareness key
February 27, 2012
MORE work needs to be done to
reduce consumer demand for
antibiotics, according to NPS.
The comments come as part of
NPS’ new campaign to reduce
antibiotic resistance (PD 01 Feb),
and are in response to a new study
titled BEACH (Bettering the
Evaluation and Care of Health)
which found that that overall GPs in
Australia have decreased their level
of prescribing of antibiotics for
acute URTI and to a lesser degree,
for ‘other RTIs’.
“Prescribing is only one side of
the antibiotic story: the other is
reducing consumer demand for
antibiotics,” said NPS CEO Dr Lynn
Weekes.
“There is still a lot more work to
be done and messages that need to
be reinforced,” she added.
According to NPS, whilst
antibiotics resistance is a global
problem, Australia has a lot of work
ahead of it in order to stop its own
rise in resistance.
“Even if prescribing of antibiotics
in Australia was reduced by 25%,
Australia would still sit above the
OECD average,” Weekes said.
“From NPS research, we know
that patients often visit their GP
expecting or asking for an antibiotic
prescription so it’s important we
raise the dangers of antibiotic
misuse with them to reduce the
incidence of this occurring.
“In order to begin to reduce
antibiotic resistance we need to
first capture the community’s
imagination, and RTIs [respiratory
tract infections] are a good place to
begin – because everyone catches
colds and can relate to the topic,”
she added.
As such, the NPS has announced
that the first year of its five-year
antibiotic resistance campaign will
focus on respiratory tract
infections.
“But it’s important to note that
RTIs are only a small piece of the
antibiotic resistance puzzle,”
Weekes said.
“Subsequent years of the
campaign will focus on other
infections including urinary tract
infections and skin infections,” she
added.
For more information on the
campaign see www.nps.org.au.
The above article was sent to subscribers in Pharmacy Daily's issue from 27 Feb 12To see the full newsletter, see the embedded issue below or CLICK HERE to download Pharmacy Daily from 27 Feb 12
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