Renewed efforts are needed to curb antibiotic resistance

Antibiotic resistance continues to increase in the United States and has become a serious health problem, even though physicians are writing fewer prescriptions for them. Experts said at the launch of the latest data on use and effectiveness of antibiotics in the US that the cultural norm of antibiotic stewardship needed to change.

More US citizens die of MRSA (methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus) than HIV infection but few people are aware of that, Ramanan Laxminarayan, director of the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy, said when launching the redesigned and updated ResistanceMap report on 13 November.

Antibiotic resistance was affecting every doctor’s practice, Henry Chambers, chief of infectious disease at San Francisco General Hospital, added. You could treat a common Escherichia coli urinary tract infection with fluoroquinolones …