The Chamber of Pharmacists in the German state of Lower Saxony has warned against the use of antibiotics in the treatment of viral infections, stressing that their use should be limited to the treatment of bacterial infections.
Experts have also pointed out the need to respect the prescribed times for antibiotics to have the desired effect: if the doctor prescribes taking the antibiotics “3 times a day”, then they must be taken every 8 hours.
The importance of this is that antibiotics work best when levels of the drug in the body have not fallen too low.
In addition, antibiotics must be taken for the entire period prescribed by the doctor. If the treatment is stopped prematurely, the pathogenic bacteria will remain in the body, which can prolong the infection. It is therefore not allowed to stop taking antibiotics once you feel better.
Antibiotics are among the most prescribed drugs by doctors, and they work to kill the bacteria that cause disease, but they don’t cure all disease.
The Secretary General of the German Society for Internal Medicine, Professor Ulrich Folch, defined antibiotics as drugs that affect the life of bacteria, or in other words, kill pathogens and prevent their growth.
Folch added that antibiotics only help treat diseases caused by bacteria, such as tonsillitis, pneumonia, cystitis and meningitis, while they have no effect on infections caused by bacteria. virus and then they do not help to treat the flu.