The latest jump in antibiotic resistance across Australia could leave doctors with fewer treatment options, researchers have warned.
More people may also end up requiring hospital treatment as a result, experts at Adelaide University said.
Team leader Professor John Turnidge said Australians had developed a culture of entitlement over the past half century about being prescribed antibiotics, often when there was little or no likelihood the drugs would cure an ailment.
A national study carried out by Professor Turnidge and his team has confirmed antibiotic-resistant strains of disease-causing bacteria, such as E.coli, are rising steadily.
Professor Turnidge said their report, compiled for the federal Health Department, had found antibiotic resistance was now showing up in the wider community and not just among hospital admissions.
“The research has shown that we’re having steadily increasing resistance now to the point where we’re seeing more than 5 per cent of strains being resistant to multiple antibiotics,” he said.
“Previously people think of the resistance as being in hospital. We now know it’s very much a community problem as well.”
Researchers fear big upswing in resistance
Professor Turnidge said Australians had become too reliant on antibiotics and their use was excessive compared to prescribing rates in other countries.
He cited the Netherlands as an example of where prescribing rates were vastly lower than in Australia.
Professor Turnidge said antibiotics achieved only side effects when used against some ailments, such as viral infections, and even some bacterial infections got better without their use.
He warned the rise in antibiotic resistance in Australia might not be steady, or slow.
“It creeps along at a fairly low level for a while but then it creeps up and then all of a sudden it takes a big upswing, even if we don’t change anything,” he warned.
“We’re quite concerned at this point we might be at the start of the very big upswing, which will have a significant impact on healthcare out in the community.
“It’ll mean that even fewer antibiotics are available to the GP treating patients and it means that more patients are going to be ending up in hospital.”
In the latest research, Australian teams collected and tested thousands of samples of E.coli and other bacteria from 29 health centres.
They found general community resistance to three types of antibiotics in more than 7 per cent of E.coli samples, compared with 4.5 per cent when studied four years earlier.
The results of the study carried out for the Australian Group on Antimicrobial Resistance are available on the Health Department website.