title: Antibiotic use in Germany and European comparison.
abstract: In view of increasing rates of antibiotic resistance worldwide and decreased research and development of new antibacterial compounds, programmes helping to better understand the complex relationship between antibiotic consumption and emergence of resistance have gained importance. Consequently, in addition to increased support for research projects that establish prospective surveillance and evaluation of antibiotic resistance and antimicrobial drug use, the EU has passed directives addressing political leadership in this respect. Information on antibiotic use in Germany is now available from databases independent from cost-oriented market research studies. This information allows estimation of antibiotic use in ambulatory and hospital care as compared with to other EU countries. According to results of current projects, the frequency of national antibiotic use in ambulatory care in Germany (4948 defined daily doses per 1000 population per year) falls within the lower third of EU countries. Upper boundaries in regional variation in antibiotic use are still much lower than values for high-use countries like France, Spain and Portugal. Hospital antibiotic use, in contrast, appears to be in the range of that reported for other countries. However, only rough estimates of hospital antibiotic use are available for Germany as well as most other EU countries due to data usually derived from non-representative hospital sampling.
authors.affiliation: Medizinische Klinik und Poliklinik, Klinikum der Albert-Ludwigs-Universität, Freiburg.
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: De With
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Schröder
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Meyer
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Nink
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hoffmann
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Steib-Bauert
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kämmerer
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ruess
authors.forename: F D
authors.initials: FD
authors.lastname: Daschner
authors.forename: W V
authors.initials: WV
authors.lastname: Kern
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents / Q000008:administration & dosage*; D024881:Drug Resistance, Bacterial; D004363:Drug Utilization / Q000706:statistics & numerical data / Q000639:trends; D005062:European Union; D005858:Germany; D006801:Humans
chemical_list: D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents