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.
A new study published in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology looked at antibiotic prescribing in Australia, which had low COVID-19 positivity rate.
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.
‘Antibiotic prescribing is reduced following COVID-19 restrictions in Australia.’
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 can go if guidelines are followed more closely.
Source: Medindia
