http://www.pharmj.com/Editorial/20050219/news/p199antibiotic.html
concerning the antibiotic resistance in Europe. As we can read in this article, antibiotic resistance is less common in northern Europe than it is in southern or eastern Europe, probably because antibiotics are used less widely in the north.
So suggests new research from the European Surveillance of Antimicrobial Consumption
http://www.ua.ac.be/main.aspx?c=*ESAC2
In this website there is also an interactive database
http://www.ua.ac.be/main.aspx?c=*ESAC2&n=22182
from where we can extract the data for the various European countries, like the following figure.
Researchers compared the extent of antibiotic prescribing in primary care in 26 European countries by calculating the defined daily dose (DDD) of antibiotic per inhabitant. This was compared with levels of antibiotic resistance in each country.
Another article comes from the “drugresearcher” http://www.drugresearcher.com/news/news-ng.asp?n=58023-antibiotic-resistance-rises
with the title “Antibiotic resistance rises in European regions”
In this article the author stated that “High rates of antibiotic resistance in South and East Europe are higher than in northern Europe because the regions have high rates of antibiotic use, according to a study published in this week’s issue of The Lancet”.
This article came also from the ESAC (European Surveillance of Antimicrobial Consumption)
Antibiotic use was compared with antibiotic resistance rates in 26 European countries from the beginning of 1997 to the end of 2002. To control for the different population sizes the investigators expressed data in defined daily dose per 1000 inhabitants daily (DID).
The study found that prescription rates in Europe varied greatly with France having the highest rate (32.2 DID) and Netherlands having the lowest (10.0 DID). Across Europe antibiotic use was lower in northern, moderate in eastern and higher in southern regions.
The role of the Hospital Pharmacists in this area is obvious!
