{"id":364226,"date":"2017-10-23T09:45:57","date_gmt":"2017-10-23T09:45:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=364226"},"modified":"2017-10-23T09:45:57","modified_gmt":"2017-10-23T09:45:57","slug":"patients-need-rest-not-antibiotics-say-health-officials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=364226","title":{"rendered":"Patients need rest, not antibiotics, say health officials"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">More patients should be told to go home and rest rather than be given antibiotics, according to health officials.<\/p>\n<p>Public Health England (PHE) says up to a fifth of antibiotic prescriptions are unnecessary as many illnesses get better on their own.<\/p>\n<p>Overusing the drugs is making infections harder to treat by creating drug-resistant superbugs.<\/p>\n<p>PHE says patients have &#8220;a part to play&#8221; in stopping the rise of infections.<\/p>\n<p>It is estimated:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"story-body__unordered-list\">\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">5,000 people die in England each year as a result of drug-resistant infections<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">Four in 10 cases of bloodstream E. coli infections now cannot be treated with first-choice antibiotics<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">By 2050, drug-resistant infections around the world are expected to kill more people than currently die from cancer<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Antibiotics are vital in cases of sepsis, pneumonia, bacterial meningitis and other severe infections.<\/p>\n<p>But PHE says antibiotics are not essential for every illness.<\/p>\n<p>Coughs or bronchitis can take up to three weeks to clear on their own, but antibiotics reduce that by only one to two days, it says.<\/p>\n<p>Prof Paul Cosford, medical director at PHE, told the BBC: &#8220;We don&#8217;t often need antibiotics for common conditions.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The majority of us will get infections from time to time and will recover because of our own immunity.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He said patients should not go to their doctor &#8220;expecting an antibiotic&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, for infections that our body can handle, the advice is to:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"story-body__unordered-list\">\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">have plenty of rest<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">use pain relief such as paracetamol<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">drink plenty of fluids<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Prof Cosford said: &#8220;A doctor will be able to tell you when an antibiotic is really necessary.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The fact is if you take an antibiotic when you don&#8217;t need it then you&#8217;re more likely to have an infection that the antibiotics don&#8217;t work for over the coming months.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Keep Antibiotics Working campaign will also see patients handed leaflets explaining how long it normally takes to recover and the warning signs of serious illness.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Apocalypse<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Bacteria are incredibly cunning &#8211; once you start attacking them with antibiotics, they find ways of surviving.\u00a0People have died from bugs resistant\u00a0to all antibiotics.<\/p>\n<p>England&#8217;s chief medical officer, Prof Dame Sally Davies, has already warned of a &#8220;post-antibiotic apocalypse&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>If the drugs fail, then not only do infections become harder to treat, but common medical procedures such as caesarean sections and cancer treatments could become too risky.<\/p>\n<p>The most serious drug-resistant infections are sent to PHE&#8217;s laboratories at Colindale, north London, for analysis.<\/p>\n<p>Prof Neil Woodford, the site&#8217;s head of antimicrobial resistance, said the most potent antibiotics, like carbapenems, were failing more often.<\/p>\n<p>He told the BBC: &#8220;If we go back to 2005\/07, we were seeing these bacteria in maybe two to four cases per year.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Last year we confirmed these resistant bacteria in over 2,000 cases.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>More patients should be told to go home and rest rather than be given antibiotics, according to health officials. Public Health England (PHE) says up to a fifth of antibiotic prescriptions are unnecessary as many illnesses get better on their own. Overusing the drugs is making infections harder to treat by creating drug-resistant superbugs. PHE [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":364228,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[1401,1402,1403],"class_list":["post-364226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","tag-antibiotic","tag-apocalypse","tag-rest"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=364226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364226\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=364226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=364226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=364226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}