Hospitals use only cheap antibiotics, and outside of them they are taken without control

The main problems that deepen the resistance to antibiotics in our country are the widespread use of a group of cheap antibiotics in hospitals and their uncontrolled use outside of them, either on prescription or for self-medication. In this context, Bulgaria continues to lag behind in the adoption of its National Action Plan against Antimicrobial Resistance. This was commented by the experts on the occasion of the Global Awareness Week on Antimicrobial Resistance.

We cannot afford to turn the Covid-19 pandemic into a antibiotic resistance pandemiccommented the representative of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Bulgaria, Dr. Skender Sila. Every year 25,000 people in the EU die from resistant infections that do not respond to antibiotic treatment, and the WHO identifies antimicrobial resistance as one of the 10 biggest threats to human health.

“Data from the literature currently shows that only 8% of hospitalized COVID-19 patients have a bacterial or fungal infection. However, 72% of patients have been treated with antibiotics. This practice will not only lead to use antibiotic misuse worldwide, but will exacerbate the resistance problem. “Sulla announced.

The problem inside and outside hospitals

The Chief Inspector of Health of the State, Dr. Angel Kunchev, affirmed that there are mainly two problems in our country. Kunchev explained that at the moment there is an opinion mainly on the use of antibiotics in hospitals, since it can be traced how many people have been treated, with what antibiotics, etc. In hospitals, the biggest problem is that they are treated with the cheapest antibiotics for economic reasons. As a result, in one of the antibiotic groups Bulgaria ranks first in Europe in terms of resistance, and even more worrying is that the difference between us and the latter is 8 times.

“This does not mean that cheap antibiotics are bad and harmful, but if we continue to use them in this way, we will soon get rid of them and this is already starting to happen.” he said. Kunchev added that, otherwise, our country is not among the European countries with the most serious problem in terms of antibiotic resistance. Kunchev believes that the biggest problem is taking antibiotics outside of hospitals, as people turn to self-medication on a large scaleespecially in winter. “If they buy them and put them in the closet, that’s fine, but some start drinking at the slightest sign.”he commented.

Bad habits

The president of the Bulgarian Pharmaceutical Union, Professor Asena Serbezova, highlighted several bad practices regarding the prescription and use of antibiotics. She gave the example that pharmacists often find prescriptions for 3 antibiotics, with a course of treatment longer than recommended, miracle treatment protocols on social media. He commented that all this, coupled with the uncertainty and concerns about Covid-19, exacerbated the problem of resistance.

He said it was important that antibiotics were prescribed by the doctor on an individual basis, taking into account the diagnosis, the stage of the infection, the comorbidities, including the lifestyle of the particular patient. He noted that people can consult with pharmacists qualified by WHO as the most accessible health professionals in case of uncertainty about their intake, and the pharmacist can contact the doctor in case of omissions in prescriptions.

Serbezova stressed that it is not correct to have prescription matrices, which are currently being distributed and on which a large number of people can self-medicate.

“Advertising should not be allowed either, because currently there is direct advertising of drugs on social networks, in protocols written under trade names.” he said, adding that this is subject to the control of the Bulgarian Medicines Agency (BDA). “The text of the law says that Medical professionals should not be associated with drug advertising., and when it is published in a social network with the name of the specialist doctor and contains a commercial name, what else is advertising? “she commented.

The plan against antibiotic resistance slows down

Kunchev reported that another year had been lost without the adoption of the National Action Plan Against Antimicrobial Resistance, this time due to miscommunication between agencies as a result of the coronavirus epidemic.

“We had the ambition to go into effect last year, but since this is the only national program in which not so much one, two or three ministries are involved, and in fact the participants involved in its development are 20 different departments, The coordination is very.What we have tried to do is specifically request the financial part of this plan from the 20 departments, so that we do not end up with a nice and well-designed booklet from which nothing will come out, but to know that everyone is provided resources, people, time, money to make this happen. At the moment, of these 20, we have only received 5 “Kunchev explained. According to him, opinions have been received from the most key departments, but health authorities will insist that some of the important ministries present their part and allocate resources so that the document is adopted by the end of the year and implemented in 2021..