The use of antibiotics is as high as 70%. Antibiotic abuse in China needs to be curbed

The business club reported on January 17 that about 200,000 people died of adverse drug reactions each year in mainland China, of which 40% were due to misuse of antibiotics. At present, the use rate of antibiotics in hospitalized patients is as high as 70%, and about 80% of them are antibiotics. This is the data recently disclosed by Yang Zhiyu, chairman of the Behavioral Medicine Branch of the Chinese Medical Association.

According to his article published in the “Health News”, 10 of the top 15 medicines used and sold in China are antibiotics, and the per capita annual consumption of antibiotics is about 138 grams, compared with 13 grams for the United States. The national bacterial resistance surveillance results from 2006 to 2007 show that the annual utilization rate of antibacterial drugs in hospitals across the country is as high as 74%, compared with 22% to 25% in developed countries such as the United States and Britain.

According to incomplete statistics provided by Yang Zhijun, of the more than 50 million inpatients in China, about 2.5 million are hospitalized for adverse drug reactions; of the 1.8 million deaf-muted children, 60% are caused by phytotoxicity. Of the 10 million deaf and mute people in the country, 60% to 80% are related to adverse drug reactions. In hospitalized infectious patients, the mortality rate for drug-resistant infections was 11.7%, while the mortality rate for common infections was only 5.4%. He believes that these figures make China one of the countries with the most serious abuse of antibiotics in the world.

He pointed out that antibiotics are a "double-edged sword", scientific and rational application can benefit humanity, and improper use will endanger humanity. Due to the long-standing abuse of antibiotics, the resistance of the induced bacteria has become stronger and stronger, so "superbugs" that can resist most antibiotics have emerged and sounded alarm bells for the abuse of antibiotics.

He emphasized that it takes about 10 years to develop a new antibiotic, and that the evolution of new-generation drug-resistant bacteria takes only two years; the development speed of antibiotics is far behind the rate at which antibiotic-resistant bacteria are produced. Therefore, scientific and rational use of antibiotics is a challenge. The "super bacteria" is the first measure.