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Pediatric antibiotics meted out at 5 times the rate of Sweden
South Korean hospitals and clinics have prescribed excessive doses of antibiotics to children under seven, according to a recent report. The report, submitted by the Health Insurance Review Agency (HIRA) to the Korea Food and Drug Administration (KFDA) on January 18, said that the prescription of antibiotics to children under seven in South Korea amounts to the equivalent of 45.64 out of 1,000 children taking a daily defined dose of antibiotics for a year in 2003. Prescription of antibiotics to children under seven took place far more frequently in the case of outpatients, with that age demographic accounting for 97.2 percent of outpatients being administered antibiotics. In contrast, 30.3 out of 1,000 persons aged 65 or older, 26.5 out of 1,000 persons aged 50-59, 19.0 out of the same-sized group between 20-49, and 17.3 out of 1,000 persons aged 7-19 received a daily dose of antibiotics.The nation surveyed the quantity of antibiotics prescribed at hospitals and clinics nationwide during 2003 and 2004, following a standard employed by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) for the first time. Investigation of antibiotics prescription in South Korea has so far not measured the exact content and number of drugs prescribed. Regarding the amount of antibiotics prescribed for outpatients under seven, 44.4 per every 1,000 persons were administered a daily dose of antibiotics in South Korea, compared to 7.5 male and 8.4 female outpatients under seven in Sweden. This means that South Korean children take antibiotics at a rate more than five times that of their Swedish counterparts. In addition, in South Korea, doctors are advised not to prescribe antibiotics based on quinolone to persons younger than 17, but it was confirmed that 0.2 percent of the total quantity of this medicine consumed was prescribed to children under seven in South Korea. According to the report, the total antibiotics consumed in South Korea in 2004 amounted to a equivalent of 23.62 per 1,000 persons being administered a daily defined dose of antibiotics for an entire year, the sixth-highest level among the 30 member nations of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Researchers fear that overprescription of antibiotics could render them an ineffective treatment in the future. Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]
