Medical Xpress: Antibiotic treatment doubled the risk of death from SARS

Medical Xpress reports that Norwegian scientists from the Akershus University Hospital and the University of Oslo questioned the use of antibiotics during hospitalization with SARS. The researchers presented their findings at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID).

In their work, the Norwegians concluded that antibiotic therapy not only does not improve survival in the case of hospitalization of patients with acute respiratory viral infections, but also almost doubles the risk of death in the first 30 days after prescribing these drugs.

The scientists made the corresponding conclusions based on the analysis of data from 2111 adults who took a swab from the nasopharynx and throat, and also studied blood tests from them upon admission to the hospital from 2017 to 2021. The researchers note that more than half of them were prescribed antibiotic therapy upon admission to the hospital with SARS, and another 168 patients were prescribed antibiotics during hospitalization. The total number of patients treated with antibiotics was 63%.

Experts found that less than 10% of them, namely 168 people, died within 30 days. Based on their data, the researchers concluded that patients who were prescribed antibiotics at any time in the hospital had twice the risk of death within 30 days, and the risk of death increased by 3% for each day of antibiotic therapy.