New Zealand ranks fourth in the OECD when it comes to antibiotic prescriptions, but that’s not a good thing
New Zealand’s antibiotic overuse
When you or your little one develops a virus, all you want is for it to pass.
You see your local doctor, and you’re sent home with orders of rest, recovery and a round of antibiotics.
But one expert warns that might not be the best practise, saying they’re not effective against viruses.
Associate professor of infectious diseases at the University of Auckland, Mark Thomas, says there are antiviral drugs that do work against some viruses like HIV or hepatitis C.
“But antibiotics, the ones that work against bacteria, don’t work against viruses. So, antibiotics aren’t useful for influenza, for instance,” he says.
A new study from Massey University and the University of Otago has found that we’re one of the highest users of antibiotics – with nearly all children born between 2005 and 2010 dispensed antibiotics at some point.
The study found that 96 percent of children and around 30 percent of pregnant women were given at least one round of antibiotics and by the time the ‘median’ child turned five, they’d received seven rounds.
However, Thomas tells The Detail the issue goes beyond kids.
“We as a nation have overused antibiotics for people who have minor illnesses that don’t need antibiotics for a very long time. I’m going back well before the 2000s, back in the 1970s and 1980s,” says Thomas.
Another study published in The Lancet in July also highlighted the amount of antibiotics dispensed, estimating that 14.3 daily doses for every 1000 people was the ideal number of doses in New Zealand.
They found the actual figure to be 24.1 doses.
New Zealand also ranks fourth highest in the OECD for prescribing antibiotics.
But Thomas says we are slowly reducing the number of antibiotics being handed out to patients, and “mostly antibiotics are extremely safe medicines”.
“Doctors know about the side effects of antibiotics to some degree, and that helps them to be a little bit more cautious than they might otherwise be.”
However, the long-term effects of repeated antibiotic use in young children are only starting to be recognised.
For example, Thomas says, excessive use of antibiotics in the first year of life is linked to obesity.
“And then it’s subsequently been found that the antibiotics can also cause a slight reduction in physical development and intellectual mind development.”
Another common concern is a buildup of resistance to the medication, and the resulting ‘superbugs’.
But Thomas says there’s a general misconception around how that resistance develops.
He says that antibiotic resistance is not a change in an individual person’s body but a change to the bacteria itself.
“It’s built up over a long period of time in the population, and we’re continually sharing the bacteria that are in us with all the people around us in our home, but also the people we work with.”
Making sure we have up-to-date antibiotic guidelines and educating general practice staff about antibiotic resistance are key preventative measures to help reduce the amount of medicine we prescribe says Thomas.
But one option can make a big difference, he says – get vaccinated.
Check out how to listen to and follow The Detail here.
You can also get in touch with us by emailing thedetail@rnz.co.nz