In regions with high rates of COVID-19 spread, such as Europe and the United States, prescriptions for antibiotics in the community dropped dramatically after COVID-19 restrictions were introduced in early 2020. A study published in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology looked at antibiotic prescribing in Australia, which has had low COVID-19 rates.
Analyses of national claims data revealed that COVID-19 restrictions in Australia were associated with substantial reductions in community dispensing of antibiotics primarily used to treat respiratory infections, but antibiotics for non-respiratory infections were unchanged.
“The issue is that antibiotics should rarely be prescribed for common viral respiratory infections in the first place. These big reductions show how low general practitioners’ antibiotic prescribing could go if guidelines were followed more closely,” said co–senior Helga Zoega, PhD, of UNSW Sydney, in Australia.
Additional Information
Link to Study: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bcp.15000
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The British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology is a leading international clinical pharmacology journal published by the British Pharmacological Society. It bridges the gap between the medical profession, clinical research and the pharmaceutical industry by addressing all aspects of drug action in humans: invited review articles, original papers and correspondence.
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