Is it necessary?
A new infection test will reduce the intake of useless antibiotics
Svetlana Maslova, Hi-tech+
A new laboratory test will help to avoid hospitalization and reduce unjustified use of antibiotics. The analysis already saves hospitals thousands of dollars, and in the future the approach will reduce the acute problem of antibiotic resistance.
Scientists from the UK have developed a simple non-invasive test for viral infections, which reduces the unnecessary use of antibiotics, and also eliminates unjustified hospitalization. The test reduces the costs of medical institutions by an average of 2,500 euros ($2,900) per person and saves hospital beds for really important hospitalizations, writes EurekAlert.
The accuracy and efficiency of the laboratory test makes it possible to exclude unnecessary use of antibiotics: the results of the study showed that in 50% of cases the prescribed antibiotics were not shown to the patient.
The results are ready 45 minutes after the biomaterial is taken: a sample of the secret is taken from the nasal passages for further analysis. Usually, the study for viral infections took about two days, during which the patient was hospitalized anyway. As a result, an infected person could infect others in a hospital ward, and unnecessary antibiotics only aggravated his condition.
The service has already been launched in pilot mode at a hospital in Watford in the UK since January 2018. During the five months of the program's operation, significant savings in the healthcare budget were recorded.
An important advantage of the new approach should be the reduction of antibiotic resistance among the population, scientists believe.
They are going to conduct a similar experiment among emergency doctors, who will first send the patient to special medical centers to perform an analysis to confirm the need for hospitalization and taking antibiotics.
The problem of antibiotic resistance is largely related to its overdose, when a person takes medicine strictly according to a prescription, regardless of the body's signals. To cope with this problem, students from Switzerland came up with how to determine the concentration of an antibiotic in the body in five minutes. Their development will help doctors to quickly change the dosage of toxic drugs and save the patient from negative consequences.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru