Physicians Key in Preventing
Antibiotic Resistance

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently launched a national campaign aimed at encouraging appropriate antibiotic use, which addresses a growing public health risk: the increasing prevalence of drug-resistant bacterial strains. The impetus for and timing of the CDC campaign, “Get Smart: Know When Antibiotics Work,” likely derive in part from these startling statistics:

• Antibiotic prescriptions for children increased by almost 50 percent over a 12-year period, according to a national office-based study conducted by the CDC.
• Many patients seek medical care and antibiotics because they believe that colds are caused by bacteria. A study in Pediatrics (February 2003) revealed that 53 percent of patients believed that antibiotics were needed to treat colds.
• An estimated 7.4 million prescriptions were written in 1998 for viral upper respiratory tract infections at an estimated cost of $227 million, according to Clinical Infectious Disease (August 21, 2001).

The CDC campaign is expected to increase public awareness of these issues. It also aims to reduce antibiotic resistance by promoting adherence to appropriate guidelines among physicians. In turn, this will decrease demand for antibiotics for viral illnesses among healthy adults and parents of young children and increase adherence to prescribed antibiotics among healthy adults and parents of young children.

As consumers learn more about the effectiveness of antibiotics, especially newer drugs, physicians will likely continue to face pressure from patients to prescribe antibiotics for viral illnesses, such as the common cold, influenza and bronchitis and initial treatment of otitis media with effusion, for which the drugs are ineffective. To counter that pressure, the CDC recommends that health professionals educate patients about the potential dangers of inappropriate antibiotic use and suggest symptomatic treatment with analgesics, decongestants and cough suppressants and/or antihistamines.

Patients who are receiving antibiotic prescriptions for bacterial illness should be strongly encouraged to carefully follow their doctor’s instructions and take medications for the indicated length of time, even if their symptoms subside.

More information about antibiotic resistance and related topics,
as well as patient-focused materials, can be found on the CDC Web site,
at http://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/ or on the provider area of Humana’s Web site, www.humana.com.

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