MRSA Action UK urges the government to follow European Antibiotic Awareness Day with its pledge for a public information and awareness campaign

Tuesday, 17 November 2009 12:00 AM

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control is coordinating "European Antibiotic Awareness Day" on November 18th 2009, urging doctors to stop overprescribing antibiotics. MRSA Action UK believes that this campaign should be supported by raising public awareness of the growing problem of antibiotic resistance and how to avoid infections, we urge the Government to move forward with a Public Information and Awareness campaign.

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control stated in its 2008 Annual Report on Communicable Diseases that over four million people in the EU acquire a healthcare-associated infection every year, of those approximately 37,000 die as a direct result of the infection. The death toll from healthcare-associated infections is comparable to the number of people who die each year in road traffic accidents in the EU. It is estimated that 20-30 % of all such infections could be prevented by better hygiene and infection control procedures.

The report provides the evidence of the scale of the problem and proposes some measures to both improve the monitoring of these infections and successfully reduce them.

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, which monitors and advises on disease in EU, calculates that with a hospital day costing an average of 366 euros ($548), superbug infections are already sucking up 900 million euros a year in extra hospital costs and a further 600 million euros a year in lost productivity.

Across the European Union the number of patients infected by resistant bacteria is increasing and antibiotic resistance is a major threat to public health. The Government faced criticism by the Public Accounts committee on Tuesday 10 November for failing to tackle the majority of hospital-acquired infections by narrowing its focus to the two high profile bacteria, MRSA and Clostridium difficile.

Antibiotic resistant bacteria know no borders or boundaries. The World Health Organisation has identified antibiotic resistance as one of the three greatest threats to human health. Drug-resistant infections kill tens of thousands of people in the United States each year. MRSA alone infects more than 94,000 people and kills nearly 19,000 Americans every year.

President Barack Obama and Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, representing the European Union, are to establish a transatlantic task force to address antibiotic resistance. During a summit held this week in Washington DC, President Obama and Prime Minister Reinfeldt joined forces to address the urgency of the problem and the need for solutions by signing an international agreement that seeks cooperative ways in which the United States and EU countries can help combat the global health crisis.

Without effective antibiotics, modern medical treatments such as operations, transplants, intensive care, cancer treatment and care of premature babies will become risky if not impossible.

Work in the European Union includes education for children and young people to learn about antibiotics and their effective use. Learning about microbes and hygiene, prevention being better than cure is a key theme in the programme. MRSA Action UK believes education is the key and this includes engaging with the public so that they can have a better understanding of their role in preventing infections and not expecting antibiotics to be prescribed for viral illnesses, which do not respond to antibiotics. We believe if the public are made aware that inappropriate use of antibiotics can actually cause more harm to them, it is far more likely that they will use them wisely, then it is more likely that they will have an antibiotic that can treat any potentially life-threatening bacterial infection if they need it.

Education and information is the key to helping everyone play their part in safeguarding our health and to safeguard our dwindling resource of one of the greatest discoveries and advances in medical science - antibiotics.

Derek Butler

Chair

MRSA Action UK

Email: Derek Butler

Phone: 07762 741114

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