The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the State of Nebraska designated Nov. 13 to 19, as U.S. Antibiotic Awareness Week.
Learn more about ongoing antimicrobial stewardship activities at UNMC and Nebraska Medicine here and here.
Why do antibiotics matter?
Antibiotics were an amazing discovery that changed the course of human life expectancy. Effective antibiotics have been instrumental in the success of life-saving procedures such as organ transplants and other complex surgeries. However, in medicine, antibiotics are a finite, non-renewable resource, threatened daily by the emergence and spread of antimicrobial resistance.
How to help
Everyone can help improve antibiotic prescribing and use. Improving the way health care professionals prescribe antibiotics, and the way we take antibiotics, helps keep us healthy now, helps fight antibiotic resistance, and ensures that these life-saving antibiotics will be available for future generations.
Antibiotics are unique
They are the only drugs that lose efficacy over time; they are the only drugs that need to be used sparingly to prolong their efficacy. They are the only drugs that we actively discourage use of when new drugs are approved for non-financial reasons, and they are the only drugs where everyone’s use affects other peoples’ likelihood of being treated successfully for an infection.
What is antibiotic resistance?
Antimicrobial resistance is a growing world-wide problem. When bacteria become resistant to antibiotics, the antibiotics will no longer be effective at killing the bacteria. The CDC estimated at least 2 million people become ill and 23,000 die from antibiotic-resistant infections each year, and another estimate suggested that if antimicrobial resistance is left unchecked, by the year 2050 it would kill more persons yearly than cancer.
What causes antibiotic resistance?
Whenever a person takes antibiotics, the drug eliminates the bacteria in your body that are susceptible to it, leaving only those which are resistant to grow and expand. Antimicrobial use in both humans and animals can promote resistance, and resistant bacteria are associated with worsened clinical and economic outcomes. There are many movements to try to reduce antibiotic use among food animals, but many of the antibiotics prescribed to humans are either inappropriate or unnecessary.
What is antimicrobial stewardship?
Antimicrobial stewardship refers to processes designed to optimize the use of antimicrobials. This includes interventions to guide clinicians in determining when antibiotics are needed, what agent(s) to use, and how to dose the antibiotics (what route and what duration). Antimicrobial stewardship focuses on patient and public health with goals to cure or prevent infection, minimize toxicity to patients, and minimize antimicrobial resistance. Stewardship activities have improved patient outcomes and decreased antibiotic resistance, C. difficile infections, and health care costs.
Antibiotics aren’t always the answer when you are sick.
Antibiotics are only useful for treating certain infections caused by bacteria. Antibiotics do not work on viruses, such as colds and flu, or runny noses, even if the mucus is thick or colored. Antibiotics are rarely indicated in many common infections including most cases of bronchitis, many sinus infections and some ear infections.
An antibiotic will not make you feel better if you have a virus. Respiratory viruses usually go away in a week or two without treatment. Ask your health care professional about the best way to feel better while your body fights off the virus.
When antibiotics aren’t needed, they won’t help you and the side effects could harm you. Antibiotic side effects range from minor to very severe health problems. An antibiotic should only be prescribed when the benefits of the drug outweigh the risk of side effects.
This is very informative and interesting. Thank you!