Uncontrolled antibiotic use can lead to new pandemic, warns WHO envoy

Publish: 8:34 PM, December 1, 2020 | Update: 8:34 PM, December 1, 2020

MOSCOW, – Careless antibiotic and anti-viral medicine intake amid the coronavirus pandemic may end in another pandemic, which has the potential to be much worse than the coronavirus one, World Health Organization (WHO) Representative to Russia Melita Vujnovic told a press conference Monday on the eve of the World AIDS Day.

“It is a very important issue, that of germicides and antibiotics. If we do not take antibiotics carefully – they should be used only as per doctors’ prescription, while all doctors should be very careful in assessing whether they are needed or not – then we can be faced with an even worse pandemic after the coronavirus. This is a pandemic of microorganisms resistant to antibiotics and antiviral medicine,” she said.

According to Vujnovic, in this case people will have nothing to treat themselves with when contracting viral diseases as antibiotics will no longer be effective. “Even despite the fact that we have almost won now.

Therefore, it is vital for us to understand that the coronavirus gave us the push to review the views on infectious diseases both from the doctors’ and society’s standpoint,” she concluded.