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According to the latest report of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the use of antibiotics should be eliminated immediately.
Results of research focused on drug consumption have yielded disturbing findings.
The OECD warns against the excessive use of antibiotics. Although their use slows infections and treats inflammations, if they continue to be used to the same extent as so far, resistance to them will increase.
“We use them more than necessary. We reach for them every time and not only when infections are a threat. All this will come back to haunt us within the next thirty years. People will die even from an ordinary pneumonia or as a result of small cuts and infections that are currently treatable will spread up to seven times faster than they do now,” says Michele Cecchini, head of the health division at the OECD.
More measures should be adopted to address hygiene in hospitals, from where infections often spread.
The number of deaths worldwide caused by antibiotic resistance is expected to increase by more than two million people across all age groups in 33 countries by 2050.
People are already dying from infections that used to be curable.
For example, in 2007 11,000 people in Europe died from infections, and in 2015 it was already 33,000. Resistance to antibiotics is growing. Not only are they being administered to people more often, but also to farm animals, which become part of the food chain.
The OECD states that countries must spend more funding on health protection measures and not rely only on these drugs. The report also states that if each state’s budget for preventive health care were increased by only two dollars per person, it would reduce antibiotic resistance by 75% and death projections would fall substantially.
