Antibiotic Awareness Week
18th November to 24th November
Antibiotics are essential medicines to treat serious infections but they are often used to treat illnesses, such as coughs, colds, earaches and sore throats that can get better by themselves.
Taking antibiotics encourages bacteria that live inside you to become resistant. This means that antibiotics may not work when you really need them. You can pass these resistant bacteria onto other people.
As antibiotic resistance increases the risk of performing common procedures such as caesarean sections, hip replacements and cancer treatments could become life-threatening without effective antibiotics to ward off injections. Experts predict that in just over 30 years antibiotic resistance will kill more people worldwide than cancer and diabetes combined.
Please remember that taking antibiotics when you don't need them may put you and your family at risk. It's important that, when it comes to antibiotics, you always take your doctor, nurse or healthcare professional's advice.
Video: Antibiotic resistance advert - keep antibiotics working and take your doctor's advice