High rate of antibiotic prescriptions in Slovakia

Last year general practitioners prescribed nearly four million packets of antibiotics to patients in Slovakia. These statistics only include information on adult patients. Moreover, no health insurance company requires doctors to carry out a so-called CRP test to check the presence of an inflammation before prescribing antibiotics. Insurance companies argue that it is the doctor's responsibility to take the right decision concerning the prescription of antibiotics. The World Health Organization office in Slovakia is also warning of the often unnecessary use of antibiotics in this country, and the Ministry of Health plans to push for a reduction in the number of prescriptions. Resistance to antibiotics was moreover one of the main health issues during the Slovak presidency of the Council of the EU.