Study: The world keeps using more antibiotics – and it’s making us sick

Some uses have led to rise of ‘superbugs’

Patients with a fever or congested lungs increasingly are being discouraged from taking antibiotics in the United States, and that’s a good thing. Those symptoms often are caused by viruses, in which case antibiotics – which kill bacteria – are the wrong approach.

But a new study finds that although antibiotics use has declined somewhat in the U.S., the nation remains the leading user of the drugs worldwide, with 3.3 billion doses administered in 2015. As many as one-third of these doses are thought to have been inappropriate, leading to the rise of “superbugs” – bacteria that develop resistance to the medicines.

And in many countries, antibiotics use is increasing, the study authors reported Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

From 2000 to 2015, antibiotics use per person jumped by 39 percent in a sample of 76 countries, the researchers found.

The total number of doses consumed climbed even more, by 65 percent.

Some of that growth likely was beneficial, as it represented increased access to treatment in lower-income countries whose fortunes were improving, said lead author Eili Y. Klein, a fellow at the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy, a nonprofit research institute in Washington.

But too often, antibiotics are deployed against infections that would be better addressed with preventive measures such as sanitation, said Klein, also an assistant professor of emergency medicine and epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University.

“As lower- and middle-income countries increase their economic growth and start to use antibiotics more, we don’t want them to fall into the same trap that higherincome countries have,” he said. “While we need to reduce consumption globally, we need to do it in a safe and effective manner that still allows low-income countries access to antibiotics.”

The U.S. total of 3.3 billion doses for 2015 was relatively unchanged from 3.4 billion doses in 2000. But the population rose during that period, so the picture looked better on a per-person basis, Klein said. Study authors calculated a rate of 28.2 doses per 1,000 U.S. residents every day in 2015, down 14 percent from 32.9 doses per 1,000 residents in 2000.

In the process, the U.S. fell from the top five countries in per-capita antibiotic use:

In 2000, the five highest consumption rates occurred in highincome countries: France, New Zealand, Spain, Hong Kong and the U.S., the authors found, using sales data from the global research firm IQVIA.

In 2015, three of the five highest rates occurred in low- or middleincome countries: Turkey (first), Tunisia (second) and Algeria (fifth). Higher-income countries Spain and Greece were third and fourth on the list.