DO not ask for antibiotics if you are infected with Influenza (flu) or cold during this cold season.
This is the advice from the Health and Medical Services Ministry.
Antibiotics are medicines which mostly contain penicillin such as amoxicillin and flucloxacillin the ministry’s chief pharmacist Apolosi Vosanibola says.
He said these medicines were only for bacterial infections.
He made the comments at the National Antimicrobial Resistance Workshop last week.
“The constant use of antibiotics on viral infections like flu and cold could lead to bacteria being resistant to medicine which could lead to more serious health risks in future,” he said.
“When we use antibacterial (antibiotic) it will only kill the bacteria and not the virus, it will be of no effect to viral infections.”
Mr Vosanibola said different bacteria had different medicine to kill them and doctors, because they were the agents, needed to inform patients on what each medicine would do and its side effects. An example of bacterial infection is boil and skin infections.
“Now we’re in the season of cold and flu, people are in the habit of using amoxicillin, it won’t work because it is not for viral infections like cold and flu.
“People need to understand the difference between medicines.”
Mr Vosanibola clarified that Ibuprofen was for joint pains, muscular and bone pains, and paracetamol tablets were used to control fever.
He said patients needed to learn to ask the reasons they were being prescribed a particular medicine and they also needed to learn to listen to the doctor’s advice and not demand that doctors prescribe a particular medicine.
