COUGHS AND COLDS
COUGHS & By Kurtis Moffatt
THE TIME OF YEAR HAS COME AGAIN WHEN OUR PHARMACY COUNTERS ARE DOMINATED BY COUGH, COLD AND FLU QUERIES. WITH THE PUBLIC BEING URGED TO VISIT THEIR LOCAL COMMUNITY PHARMACIST AS OPPOSED TO THEIR GP AND PATIENTS DEMANDING FASTER MORE EFFECTIVE TREATMENTS, WE ARE LIKELY TO BE UNDER MORE PRESSURE THAN EVER.
H
owever, with this predicted increase in footfall, it also presents an opportunity to focus on an issue which, if not addressed, will have major consequences: the ever growing and ever present matter of antibiotic resistance.
While the majority of coughs, colds and seasonal illnesses are caused by viruses; results published in a
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recent report by the World Health Organization (WHO) show that an alarming 64 per cent of those involved in the study believe that they will have a faster resolution of their illness with antibiotic treatment, despite the fact that antibiotics have no effect on viral infections. Thus, gaps in understanding, misconceptions (32 per cent of those interviewed in the WHO survey believe that when they feel better, they should stop the
COLDS: FIGHTING RESISTANCE AND FLU
taking the prescribed antibiotic, as opposed to completing the course of treatment), and inappropriate prescribing have unfortunately contributed to the two thirds of the population believing this idea, leading to increased demand for treatment for even the slightest sign of symptoms, and therefore the inappropriate and overuse of antibiotics in practice has amassed to something with great implications, potentially life threatening in our near future.
Antibiotic resistance occurs when a microorganism (in most cases bacteria) becomes resistant to an antibiotic to which it was originally sensitive. The rise of antibiotic resistance is now recognised as a global health crisis, and has become one of the greatest challenges for public health today, reaching dangerously high levels across the world. It is compromising the ability to treat infectious diseases, causing them to persist for longer periods of time, increasing the risk of spread to others and additionally stalling medical advancements (despite the fact that a disturbing 64 per cent of those
involved in the WHO study believed that experts in the industry would solve the problem before it becomes ‘too serious’). If antibiotics are lost, then even the simplest of infections could become life threatening once again, and as a recent report in 2014 displayed, if resistant infections are not tackled now, they could kill an extra ten million people across the world annually by 2050.
While recently there has been a push to increase the discovery of novel antibiotics, until now the focus has been on prevention rather than cure, as no new class of antibiotic has been discovered in the past 30 years. With cold and fl u season imminent, it is a priority to reduce the inappropriate use of antibiotics in practice (74 per cent of antibiotics used in the UK are prescribed in general practice), and, as pharmacists, we have an important role not only in this aspect but also in patient education; as 76 per cent of WHO study respondents believed that antibiotic resistance occurs when the body becomes resistant to antibiotics as opposed to the bacteria causing the infection, while more than 57 per >
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