Özel, speaking to an Anatolia news agency reporter yesterday, noted that Turkey’s consumption of antibiotics is higher than many European nations, and that according to data from the past five years the most consumed antibiotics are for a broad spectrum of uses. He noted that antibiotics were mostly used for upper and lower respiratory tract infections.
According to the data supplied by Özel, Turkey consumed TL 7.6 billion, or $5.5 billion, worth of antibiotics in the period from January 2005 to October 2009, which adds up to more than 1 billion boxes. He added that 95 percent of medicines sold in Turkey are paid for by various social security institutions and that on average TL 1.4 billion per year was spent by the government for medicine consumed in the last five years.
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Speaking on the social habit of using antibiotics, Özel said: “The sick tend to scan and treat themselves with antibiotics, especially in cases of upper respiratory tract and urinary tract infections. The patients’ expectations and the pressure they put on the doctors have a great role to play in the number of prescriptions written for antibiotics. Moreover, doctors who don’t want to damage the patient-doctor relationship also fall into the same trap and will prescribe antibiotics needlessly. The same applies to pharmacists, who for the same reasons dole out antibiotics without prescriptions.” He added that this is an especially critical problem in rural areas, highlighting, “The basic approach to antibiotics -- much like the rest of the world -- should be that a doctor prescribes them when they are needed and a pharmacist then fills the prescription.”
As regards the general health situation in Turkey and its effects on antibiotics consumption, Özel noted, “Besides the habit of prescribing antibiotics, consuming more than Europe shows that, much like other developing nations, we are more susceptible to infections.” He stated that access to clean drinking water, living in healthy dwellings and having adequate nutrition also affected antibiotics use. According to Özel, the biggest problems in antibiotics use is that patients stop the treatment halfway through.
