Cape Town - Widespread and inappropriate use of antibiotics along with poor hygiene among health workers is turning simple diseases into killer diseases, a UCT professor has warned.
Professor Marc Mendelson, the head of infectious diseases at Groote Schuur Hospital and UCT, said while antibiotics were meant to be lifesaving drugs, overprescription and excessive use meant they could have the opposite effect.
He told delegates at the 17th World Congress of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology in Cape Town on Monday that as a result, some South African hospitals had developed superbugs that were difficult to treat, resulting in deaths that should have been prevented.
“People die every day in South African hospitals because of bacterial infections spiralling out of control. The rates of infection have reached a point where we won’t be able to treat simple infections as patients are becoming resistant to certain medicines…”
In some hospitals the rates of hospital-acquired infection, known as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), were up to 70 percent. Mendelson blamed “lazy prescription”, saying many doctors failed to investigate disease properly..
Cape Argus