EU's wide variety of antibiotic sales: study

Sales levels of oral antibiotics varied more than fourfold between the15 European Union countries in 1997, with the highest levels found in France, at 36.5 defined daily doses per 1,000 people per day, says a study published in the June 9 issue of The Lancet.

High sales were also seen in Spain (32.4), Portugal (28.8) and Belgium (26.7), while these were much lower in Germany (13.6), Sweden (13.5), Denmark (11.3) and the Netherlands (8.9), say the researchers, Otto Cars and colleagues at the Swedish Institute for Infectious Disease Control. During 1993-97, the use of antibiotics grew 34% in Italy and fell 21% in Sweden, they add.

In 11 countries, the most commonly-used antibiotic in 1997 was broad-spectrum penicillin, with sales ranging from 56% of the total in Spain to 20% in Germany, says the study. The most common drug in Finland was a tetracycline, in Austria a macrolide and, in Denmark and Sweden, narrow-spectrum penicillins. In France, the total defined daily dose per 1,000 people for all betalactam antibiotics (penicillins and cephalosporins) was six times higher than in the Netherlands, while cephalosporins were used most in Greece and least in the Netherlands. Tetracyclines were most widely used in Finland, as were quinolones in Portugal.