With mask-wearing and kids out of school last winter, viral upper respiratory infections decreased. However, clinicians have seen a return of respiratory viruses this summer and ear infections are up too.
With nurse prescribing expanding globally, it’s important they are properly guided and supported when it comes to antibiotics and managing patient expectations.
Resistant bacteria aren’t the only risk posed by overprescribing antibiotics. A more immediate risk is side-effects and reactions, which a new review shows are surprisingly frequent and often severe.
Antimicrobial resistance is a public health and economic disaster waiting to happen. If we do not address this threat, by 2050 more people will die from drug-resistant infections than from cancer.
Tick-borne diseases are becoming more common in the United States. A public health entomologist outlines some of the lesser-known threats ticks pose to human health.
The bacteria that causes melioidosis usually lives 30cm underground in clay soil but is dredged to the surface during heavy rains and floods, and can enter the body through small breaks in the skin.
Christine Carson, The University of Western Australia and Tim Inglis, The University of Western Australia
It’s hard to predict how long it will take to feel better after you start taking antibiotics. But if you start feeling worse one to two days after starting the therapy, you must see your doctor.
Two people have died after eating rockmelon contaminated with listeria. A total of ten cases have been confirmed in NSW, Queensland and Victoria between Jan 17 and Feb 9, and more are expected.
While school sores – or impetigo – is a treatable condition, if left untreated it can lead to much more serious illness such as kidney and heart disease.
New reports that stopping antibiotics when you feel better is better for you could do more harm than good. But it has reopened the debate on how long antibiotics should be used.