Guidelines set to tackle over-prescribing of antibiotics

"GPs face axe for handing out too many pills," the Daily Mail reports. The headline is prompted by remarks made by Professor Mark Baker, clinical practice chief at the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) which has published new guidelines on antibiotic prescribing.The guidelines are an attempt to tackle the growing problem of antibiotic resistance.Increasingly widespread use of antibiotics is leading to the organisms causing these infections adapting and surviving. As this resistance develops, it can render treatments for infections less effective and eventually the infections may become untreatable. What is antibiotic resistance and how does it develop?Bacteria evolve in response to their environment. Over time, they can develop mechanisms to survive a course of antibiotic treatment.This "resistance" to treatment starts as a random mutation in the bacteria’s genetic code, or the transfer of small pieces of DNA between bacteria. If the mutations are favourable to them, they are more likely to survive treatment, more likely to be able to replicate and therefore more likely pass on their resistant nature to future generations of bacteria. When taken correctly, antibiotics will kill most non-resistant bacteria, so these resistant strains can become the dominant strain of a bacteria. This means when people become infected, existing treatments may be unable to stop the infections.Widespread antibiotic resistance could have a far-reachin...
Source: NHS News Feed - Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Medication QA articles Source Type: news