This archive report was first published on 22 November 2019.
Published on November 22, 2019, a study revealed that over 300 million patient consultations occur in the UK every year, with at least a quarter of these dealing with children.
Almost two-thirds of these appointments are for coughs, sore throats, or earaches – common illnesses in young children.
Doctors and nurses group these types of illnesses as “acute respiratory tract infections”, which are considered self-limiting, meaning that antibiotics have little or no benefit and the illness will go away in time.
However, in at least 30 per cent of these consultations, antibiotics are prescribed, resulting in an estimated 13 million unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions annually.
Research on over 250,000 children in the UK found that preschool children who had taken two or more antibiotic courses for acute respiratory tract infections in the preceding year had around a 30 per cent greater chance of not responding to subsequent treatment compared to children who hadn’t taken any antibiotics.
The study specifically excluded children with long-term health conditions that would make them more prone to infections.
It’s well known that using antibiotics unnecessarily drives bacteria to change and can lead to antibiotic resistance developing.
However, people tend to think that resistance only occurs in people who use antibiotics too frequently, for too long, or in those patients with other medical conditions that make them sicker.
Our research shows that even relatively low antibiotic use has potential health implications and brings home the impact of unnecessary antibiotic use in children.
At this stage, it is impossible to say for sure what the underlying reasons are for children who have taken more antibiotics showing a greater chance of not responding to subsequent treatments.
It may be due to the emergence of resistant bacteria, disruption of the fragile gut microbiome in young children, or parental expectations of further treatment.
