OhioHealth Medical Minute: Antibiotic Awareness Week

This is Antibiotic Awareness Week, and Joe Gastaldo, MD, OhioHealth infectious diseases medical director talks about what it means for you, and for physicians in the latest OhioHealth Medical Minute.

MT:  I'm Marcus Thorpe with Dr. Joe Gastaldo, let's talk about Antibiotic Awareness Week, what is it, and why is it so important?

JG: The CDC and WHO created this week to raise the public's awareness of appropriate usage of antibiotics and the problems we have in society in medicine with overuse and creation of drug resistant bacterial infections.

MT: So they can make us better, but what is the downside of using them incorrectly and how they can lessen the effectiveness of these medications?

JG: The misuse leads to antibiotic specifically bacteria resistance and when patients get those infections that are resistant, when patients get infected, we have fewer options to treat them, but they have a higher frequency of dying from those infections.

MT: What role can physicians and patients take in keeping things in line and not using when they shouldn't?

JG: I would implore everyone to use them correctly.  All they do is kill bacteria, they don't treat something viral, don't directly treat fevers, often they are prescribed just in case. We have to get away from that and only use them when they have bacterial infections.

MT: If you would like to learn more on the antibiotic awareness week from the CDC, click here.