Doctors are stepping up their fight against antibiotic resistance

Campaign is intended to elucidate the risks of antibiotic-resistant bacteria
Antibiotics are indispensable in medicine today. The drug is used to treat bacterial infections, whether at the family doctor or in the intensive care unit in the hospital. But our main weapon to combat bacterial infections is losing more and more efficacy. Here, there is an urgent need to improve people's awareness of antimicrobial resistance.

Antibiotic-resistant pathogens pose a major threat to the health of all people. Excessive antibiotic use promotes further development of resistance. That's why physicians from the Berlin Charité and six partners started an awareness campaign to raise awareness of antimicrobial resistance. In 2015, they initiated the model project "Rational use of antibiotics through information and communication" (RAI). The scientists published a press release explaining the goals and intentions of the campaign.

There are some antibiotic resistances in bacterial strains in the world. These pose a major threat to human health. Physicians have now launched a campaign to educate people about the proper use of antibiotics. (Image: Company V / fotolia.com)

Careless use of antibiotics has fatal consequences
At the Charité responsible for RAI is Prof. Dr. med. Petra Gastmeier. The physician is the director of the Institute for Hygiene and Environmental Medicine. The expert reports that the consequences of ill-considered use of antibiotics are fatal. In Europe and the US alone, about 50,000 patients die every year from infections with antibiotic-resistant pathogens. And it is particularly alarming that the trend continues to increase. For the correct handling of antibiotics, according to the expert, education is needed. Many people are only incompletely informed about the problem. These gaps must be closed urgently, says Prof. Gastmeier.

Education not only affects physicians, but also farmers, veterinarians and patients
Human and veterinarians have now joined forces with design and communications experts to develop innovative information and communication strategies that enable the responsible use of antibiotics. RAI pursues a cross-sectoral approach, explains Prof. Dr. med. Lothar H. Wieler, President of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) and one of the partners involved. One of the biggest failings in the past was that the initiatives were always limited to one specific group, the RKI president explains. The failure now has to catch up urgently, adds Prof. Wieler.

The project follows the so-called holistic, interdisciplinary One Health concept. This concept should take into account the complex relationships between humans, animals, the environment and health. Such an integrative approach is currently considered the key to sustainable health management, say the authors. Therefore, the RAI experts are not only addressing family doctors, surgeons and intensive care physicians in hospitals who are responsible for prescribing antibiotics there. There are also veterinarians, farmers and patients in GP surgeries addressed.

Obstacles and uncertainties when dealing with antibiotics
The first phase of the project focused on the analysis of an actual status of the target group and the development of suitable intervention tools, explain the physicians. These should then be tested in the second phase. The results of the first phase of the important project showed that nearly sixty percent of the over 1000 adults surveyed believed that their personal behavior when using antibiotics had no effect on the development of resistance, the authors explain. In fact, improper ingestion of antibiotics promotes the emergence of resistant bacteria.

Even among the surveyed veterinarians falsely thinks almost every second that its prescription behavior does not affect the resistance situation in his region, add the doctors. The study also found some practical obstacles and uncertainties in the proper use of antibiotics. These include, for example, lack of time and information lost in communication between the prescribing physicians and the users.

Intervention tools will improve the education
Specially developed intervention tools, such as the so-called Info Recipe Generator, are designed to provide better support to GPs in the future. The physician can hereby put together personalized information about their clinical picture for his patients. He can also add information about antibiotic therapy, the experts explain. A podcast will help inform veterinarians about antibiotics and resistant pathogens in a time-efficient and location-independent way. The goal is to show doctors alternatives to treatment with antibiotics. The measures will be staggered by the RAI partners starting in August, introduced step by step and tested in practical use. The first results are expected in 2018, the authors add. (As)