How antibiotics are the best?

This issue is the cause of controversy currently. To prevent the development of resistance in bacteria, doctors often recommend taking antibiotics even if the symptoms have disappeared to prevent the bacteria from having a chance to revive.

Amoxicillin antibiotic (Photo: sitemaker.umich)

However, this rule does not seem to be suitable for all infections: using many antibiotics can also create resistance to bacteria.

The Dutch team led by Jan Prins confirmed that pneumonia could be cured within 3 days instead of 7 to 10 days. They followed the case of 129 patients hospitalized for mild pneumonia.

These patients were given intravenous amoxicillin antibiotics within 3 days. Half of them then continued their treatment with this pill in pill form, while the other half took placebo, all within 5 days. 8 days later, the cure rate (90%) was the same in all patients. This research was published in the British Medical Journal.

The effectiveness of short-term use of antibiotics has been demonstrated for some urinary infections in women or gonorrhea. On the contrary, for staphyloccocus, staphyloccocus should be used for a long time.

Therefore, to know the most effective treatment time, researchers need to carry out clinical trials for each infection. Anyway, the doctor is the one who decides the time to take the medicine.