MEPs propose blueprint for safer health care

• Strictly prohibiting their use without prescription;
• requiring a microbiological diagnosis before prescribing antibiotics;
• implementing marketing practices designed to prevent conflicts of interest between producers and prescribers, and;
• improving information on the monitoring of antimicrobial consumption and antimicrobial resistance and infection control.

MEPs also urge pharmaceutical companies to invest in developing new antimicrobial agents, and ask the European Commission to consider proposing a “legislative framework” to encourage the development of new antibiotic drugs..

Veterinary antibiotics: Restrict preventive use

MEPs also advocate responsible use of antimicrobials in veterinary medicine, including medicated feed, by allowing their use only for treatment after veterinary diagnosis. Two pieces of legislation on the matter are under discussion in the European Parliament.

The use of veterinary antibiotics should therefore gradually be restricted to therapeutic purposes, by progressively eliminating their use for prophylactic ones. The use of metaphylaxis, i.e. the mass medication of animals to cure sick ones on farms while preventing the infection of healthy ones, should also be kept to a minimum, say MEPs.

Background

Between 8% and 12% of patients in EU hospitals suffer adverse events, almost half of which could be avoided. The commonest health-care-related adverse events are health-care-associated infections (HAIs), medication-related events and complications arising during or after surgical operations.