Superbug fears as web chemists sell antibiotics illegally

ONLINE pharmacies are fuelling the superbugs crisis by freely selling antibiotics without a prescription, a major study finds today.

It warns that British patients are risking their health by ordering antibiotics from pirate websites and foreign pharmacists, which then ship the pills to the UK.

Even some legitimate British pharmacies that do ask for a prescription are allowing people to choose their own antibiotics – and their own dosage – before signing off the order.

Scientists at Imperial College London found that antibiotics were illegally available without prescription on 45 per cent of the first 20 online pharmacy websites they looked at.

These companies were either abroad – in India or Cyprus – or were unregistered firms with no record of their host country.

But shockingly, the researchers found that 80 per cent of websites, including at least one legally registered British firm, allowed patients to choose the dose, duration and type of antibiotic even if a prescription was provided.

Only 30 per cent of websites asked patients any health questions at all before drugs were purchased.

Professor Dame Sally Davies, the Government’s Chief Medical Officer, last night reacted with fury to the revelations.

‘Clinicians across the country are making great progress in reducing inappropriate prescrip- tions and this cannot be undermined by reckless illegal online pharmacies,’ she said.

‘It is essential that we look after our antibiotics and only use them where clinically appropriate. Inappropriate use drives the development of drug-resistant

‘Back to the dark ages’

infections which could halt treatments and operations that we consider routine, such as hip operations, chemotherapy and caesareans.’

The overuse of antibiotics means superbugs are rapidly becoming resistant to treatment, a problem which experts say will kill 10million people a year by 2050. They warn that medicine will be taken back to the ‘dark ages’ if antibiotics are rendered ineffective, with even minor operations becoming impossible without drugs to turn to.

But while NHS doctors are under huge pressure to reduce prescriptions, websites seem to be freely doling them out with few checks.

Antibiotics prescriptions given out by GPs dropped by 2.6million last year. But experts worry patients who are denied the drugs turn instead to the internet.

Martin Astbury, president of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, last night called for online provision of antibiotics to be banned until the industry is properly regulated. ‘Unnecessary antibiotic use can result in serious side- effects in individuals and has a major impact on wider public health by increasing antibiotic resistance,’ he said.

‘We cannot support access to antibiotics through a web form until the standards for prescribing by private providers reflect the standard of face-to-face consultations in the NHS.’

The Imperial team, whose findings are published in the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, did not name any of the companies.

But they have passed the details to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, with which all legal online pharmacies are registered.