The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned against widespread and inappropriate use of antibiotics during the COVID-19 pandemic, thereby jeopardizing the fight against antimicrobial resistance (AMR).
According to the WHO, although only eight percent of hospitalized COVID-19 patients actually required antibiotics due to bacterial co-infections, three out of four patients were prescribed these drugs "just in case" they might be useful.
Dr. Margaret Harris , a spokesperson for the WHO, stressed during a press conference at the UN in Geneva that the guidelines were clear from the outset: COVID-19 was a viral infection, therefore the use of antibiotics was recommended only if there was a proven secondary bacterial infection that was sensitive to these drugs.
Data collected by the WHO revealed antibiotic use rates ranging from 33 percent in the Western Pacific region to 83 percent in the Eastern Mediterranean and African regions. Despite a decrease in prescriptions in Europe and the Americas between 2020 and 2022, Africa saw an increase in antibiotic use.
The highest use of antibiotics was observed in patients with severe or critical COVID-19 , averaging 81 percent globally. In mild or moderate cases, usage rates varied considerably across regions, peaking at 79 percent in Africa.
The main risk of this inappropriate use, explains Dr. Harris, is the increase in antimicrobial resistance to these particular antibiotics, thus reducing their effectiveness when actually needed to treat bacterial infections.
The WHO is also concerned that antibiotics used during the pandemic have a higher potential for antimicrobial resistance than other available drugs, thus exacerbating the problem of AMR.
These findings, based on data from the WHO Global Clinical Platform for COVID-19, were presented at the World Congress of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases in Barcelona, Spain.
This study underlines the crucial importance of caution in the use of antibiotics and highlights the persistent challenges in the fight against AMR, a global threat to public health.
