Bulgaria ranked highest in Europe in consumption of mass and cheap antibiotics

Bulgaria is ranked highest in Europe in terms of consumption of the most massive groups of antibiotics. Because of their frequent use in hospital and outpatient care, Bulgaria sees the highest resistance to this group of medicines. This means that treatment with some patients is ineffective.

According to doctors, because of the frequent and unreasonable use of the most commonly prescribed antibiotics, the bacteria they are targeting become resistant to their effect.

Assoc. Prof. Ivan Ivanov, Head of the National Reference Laboratory "Control and Monitoring of Antibiotic Resistance": Bacteria can multiply and cause infections, despite of the drug against them in the environment they live in.

In these cases, patients are treated with more expensive, broad-spectrum antibiotics. Sometimes, however, the bacteria are resistant to them as well. Incorrect use of antibiotics poses serious risks, doctors warn.

Prof. Todor Kantardjiev, Director of the National Centre for Infectious and Parasitic Diseases: More deaths, more hospital infections and more re-hospitalizations. Last year, 2.4 million Bulgarians were in hospitals. This means that the same patients have been in many different hospitals.

Assoc. Prof. Ivan Ivanov: It is always necessary to use the opinion of an expert, a doctor and never to use it without prescription.

Since the beginning of this year, the Medicines Agency has sanctioned 50 pharmacies for selling drugs without prescription. The fine is 1,000 BGN.