Portugal e os antibióticos

Num estudo da revista The Lancet, realizado em 35 países europeus, Portugal surge em 4º lugar no ranking dos maiores consumidores de antibióticos. Aqui fica um excerto:

In all but one country (Portugal) we recorded no seasonal variation of ciprofloxacin use (data not shown), suggesting that this drug was used mainly for treatment of urinary tract infections. Fluctuations in prescriptions for ciprofloxacin in Portugal are consistent with it being given as a treatment for adults with winter seasonal infections, especially those of the respiratory tract. Ciprofloxacin has little activity against streptococci, and the general belief is that this drug should not be used for treatment of patients with respiratory tract infections. We suggest that a low seasonal fluctuation of the early fluoroquinolones, such as ciprofloxacin, is a good marker of restrained use. Levofloxacin and moxifloxacin have better activities against pneumococci than do the early agents, and their introduction in Europe was generally very successful in countries with high antibiotic use and resistance rates. When sounding the alarm about the problem of rising antibiotic resistance, we could be inadvertently promoting inappropriate use of these new quinolones. This inappropriate use will inevitably lead to emergence of not only resistant pneumococci, but also of a host of resistant gram-negative organisms.