2015-07-07
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Local residents fish in a polluted river in Beijing on March 29, 2011.
AFP
Antibiotic resistance is on the rise in China, fueled by over-prescription of the microbe-killing drugs, their use in livestock, and the pollution of the country’s waterways, experts have warned.
China consumed an estimated 162,000 tons of antibiotics in 2013 alone, accounting for half of the global total, according to a recent report from researchers at the Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry.
Based on 10 years of field research into antibiotics in China’s major rivers, the report found that human consumption accounted for about 48 percent, while the rest were fed to domestic animals to prevent disease.
According to some estimates, China sees one million deaths a year from antibiotic-resistant infections, which occur when the microbes adapt to the antibiotics when there is not enough dosage to kill them.
The report in the May edition of the U.S. journal Environmental Science and Technology focused on 36 commonly detected antibiotics, 92,700 tons of which were consumed in 2013, and some 53,800 tons of which ended up in China’s rivers after excretion by animals and humans.
One of the worst-hit bodies of water was the iconic Dongting Lake in central China, where researchers found some 3,440 tons of the substances.
The Yellow River, Huaihe River, and Yangtze River downstream basins all absorbed more than 3,000 tons of antibiotics in 2013.
The most commonly used antibiotic in China in both humans and animals was amoxicillin, with florfenicol, lincomycin, penicillin, and norfloxacin also commonly found, the report said.
Drugs overprescribed
The massive amount of antibiotics found in China’s waterways is likely linked to overprescription in China, where they account for around half of all drugs prescribed by hospitals, compared with just 10 percent in hospitals in developed countries.
However, the figures for developed countries didn’t include antibiotic prescriptions in primary health-care facilities, and many Chinese go to hospitals to seek primary care.
U.S.-based primary care physician Zhang Youmei said the overuse of antibiotics is already giving rise to multi-drug resistant “superbugs” worldwide.
But he said there are psychological reasons behind overprescription, particularly in China.
“Respiratory tract infections are self-limiting, and they often get better by themselves in a few weeks,” Zhang said. “But patients in mainland China who get a cold or flu demand antibiotics from their doctor.”
“A lot of doctors in China satisfy those demands, and that is something that needs to change.”
U.S.-based doctor Wan Yanhai, who fled the country after he blew the whistle on the spread of the HIV/AIDS epidemic through rural blood-selling schemes in poverty-stricken Henan province, agreed.
“Patients in China have a whole set of superstitions around prescriptions, and they insist on having a prescription whenever they see the doctor,” Wan said.
“Otherwise, they don’t see the point of going to the doctor.”
