GP's Told to Stop Prescribing Antibiotics for Coughs & Colds.

Family doctors are to be told to stop prescribing antibiotics for coughs and colds because overuse is contributing to the spread of hospital bugs and putting vital treatments under threat.

The European Centre of Disease prevention and Control is to write to all GPs warning them of the dangers of routinely handing out the drugs.

Experts at the influential centre, based in Stockholm which is focused on controlling infectious diseases in Europe, say the prescription of the pills, which are not necessary in most cases, is fuelling the rise in the number of infections that are resistant to antibiotics.

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They have warned for the first time that modern medicine is reaching a point when it will no longer be able to function because antibiotics are powerless to fight life-threatening hospital infections.

It will mean that organ transplants, hip replacements and cancer treatment may have to be halted because antibiotics used to protect patients from hospital infections will no longer work.

GPs have claimed they often feel under pressure from patients who are angered if they are refused treatment for colds and sore throats even though antibiotics do not combat viruses.

The European experts admit that part of the problem is caused by pushy parents who demand medicine for their children.

Dominic Monnet, senior expert at the Scientific Advice unit at the ECDC in Stockholm, said: “If this wave of antibiotic resistance gets over us, we will not be able to do organ transplants, Hip replacements, Cancer Chemotherapy, Intensive care and Neonatal care for premature babies.

“It is the whole span of modern medicine as we know it, that we will not be able to do if we lose antibiotics.”

More antibiotics are prescribed in Britain than in nine other European countries including Norway, Sweden and Denmark, and it has one of the highest rates of resistance in Europe.

Last year 38 million prescriptions for antibiotics were written by GPs at a cost to the NHS of £175 million.

UK Government scientists agreed that there was 'a public health treat’ from infections that are resistant to multiple antibiotics and there was an urgent need to develop new treatments.

Dr Laurance Buckman, chairman of the British Medical Association’s GP committee, said: “The BMA has been campaigning for years to discourage inappropriate use of antibiotics.

“This means two things - patients should not ask for them when they are not needed, and GPs should not give them.

“The idea that antibiotics cure coughs and colds and are all purpose things that are good for you has to be discarded.

“Some GPs are fearful of getting into an argument with their patients but they should not give antibiotics when they are not needed.”

Rates of certain bacterial infections, including MRSA, have been reduced with the use of specific antibiotics and improved hygiene. However, there is a growing threat from a new family of bacterial infection including Acinetobacter, which affects around 1,000 patients each year. It is normally harmless but can cause blood poisoning and life-threatening pneumonia in the vulnerable.

Dr Monnet said while there were 13 new antibiotics under development for the family of bacterial infections including MRSA, there were only six under development for the second family, known as Gram-negative and including Acinetobacter, and E-Coli.

A spokesman for the Health Protection Agency said: “Antibiotics are a precious resource in fighting infections and one that we must do everything possible to preserve.

“New antibiotics need to be developed to ensure the range of treatment options for some infections does not run out.

“There remains a public health threat posed today by multi-resistant Gram-negative bacteria and therefore there is an urgent need for the pharmaceutical industry to work towards developing new treatment options to tackle infections caused by these bacteria, in the same way as they did for bacteria like MRSA.”

Sarah Earnshaw of the Health communications unit at the ECDC, based in Stockholm, said doctors were often pressured to prescribe antibiotics.

She said: “Patients are often demanding antibiotics especially parents demanding them for their children.

A survey in 2002 showed that 60 per cent of people did not know that antibiotics do not work against viruses such as flu.”

She said the ECDC would be writing to all GPs on November 18 warning them about overuse of the drugs and giving them materials to help them explain to demanding patients that antibiotics must be used sparingly.

Alan Johnson, the former Health Secretary launched a £270 million advertising campaign earlier this year telling patients that antibiotics will not help with a cough or cold.

In July, the National Insititute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) issued guidance to doctors telling them not to prescribe antibiotics to patients who are suffering from minor illnesses such as an ear infection, sore throat, tonsillitis, a cold, sinus infection, cough or bronchitis.

~By Rebecca Smith, Medical Editor, and Kate Devlin - Published: 9:59PM GMT 08 Nov 2009