Antibiotics Abuse kills 80,000 annually in China

Antibiotics abuse kills 80,000 Chinese people every year and leads to extra medical spending of 80 billion yuan (11.7 billion U.S. dollars) across the country.

Rational use of medicine once more found itself in the forefront of public attention recently at the launching ceremony of the nationwide training program for grass roots health institutes to curb excessive use of antibiotics. Statistics show antibiotics account for 74 percent of total medicine usage, about 20 to 50 percent more than in Western countries. Patients and even doctors take them as a panacea.

Penicillin – one of the first and most widely used antibiotics – and other antibiotics successfully treated many bacterial infections last century. It was predicted that the time had arrived for humanity to conquer bacteria. But abuse of antibiotics is making bacteria increasingly drug-resistant.

"It takes about 10 years to develop a new antibiotic and bacterial resistance emerges within two years. There may come a time when there are no effective antibiotics left," said Liu Yong, a director of the Health Ministry, adding that the 2007 World Health Report had said drug-resistance was a serious problem that jeopardized human safety.

According to statistics, the fungal infection rate in Peking Union Medical College Hospital was zero in the 1980s. The figure reached 7 to 8 percent in 2000. The situation was mostly caused by medicine abuse.

Higher cost of research and a shorter effective life-span are making more and more pharmaceutical factories reluctant to develop new antibiotics.

Abuse of antibiotics also results in increased medical spending and organ impairment. In addition, it sometimes leads to secondary infections. Bacterial parasites usually maintain a balance in human mouths, respiratory passages and intestines. But antibiotics might kill off some benign bacteria in the long term allowing malignant and external agents subsequently to induce secondary infections.

According to experts' calculations, excessive use of antibiotics led to extra medical spending of 80 billion yuan (11.7 billion U.S. dollars) in 2005. "Forty percent of 200,000 patient deaths resulted from antibiotic abuse," said Liu Yong.

Excessive use of antibiotics is a major problem in China, especially in rural hospitals. "Some medical employees do not understand the basic principles of antibiotic use," said Wu Yongpei, an expert with the Committee of Rational Use of Medicine under the Health Ministry. According to Wu, some gynaecological antibiotics that are prohibited or strictly controlled in foreign countries due to poor safety and adverse reactions are still widely used in China. He called for training programs on clinical antibiotic use.

Wu's demand was echoed by doctors, especially those working in rural areas. Delegates representing rural doctors attending a symposium on January 8 said they hoped major medical institutes would provide technical support and training for their rural counterparts.

Another reason for antibiotic abuse is that hospitals are financially dependent on medicine sales. Antibiotics, with a higher price than other medicines, accounted for 26 percent of total sales in 124 major hospitals in 2004. This percentage has remained above 20 percent in subsequent years.

"Hospitals can suffer significant economic losses if their antibiotics are not sold before their expiry dates," said Wang Aixia, director of the Infectious Disease Department of Peking Union Medical College Hospital.