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StaphAseptic™ News
Course of antibiotics 'can leave a patient resistant to that drug for up to a year'
May 19, 2010
Telegraph
By Kate Devlin, Medical Correspondent
Up to 10 million Britons are wrongly given the medications every year, despite a Government drive to stop GPs handing them out for coughs and colds, against which they are useless.
Now a new study has shown that the stark effects of such inappropriate prescribing.
Researchers found that giving patients a course of antibiotics doubles the chance they will develop bacterial resistance.
The effect can last for up to 12 months.
Although doctors can often use another antibiotic to treat a patient's infection, this risks building resistance to that drug, creating a vicious circle.
Overuse of antibiotics has fuelled the development of hospital superbugs, such as MRSA.
More than £100 million is wasted every year on the drugs being wrongly prescribed every year.
The drugs do not work against viral infections but GPs report that they often feel under pressure from patients to hand them over.
Dr Alastair Hay, from the University of Bristol, who led the study, said that while antibiotic resistance was recognised as a public health problem most people did not see that as a reason to stop using them.
This is a portion of the original article. To keep reading, visit telegraph.co.uk
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