Bulgarian hospitals use up to three times more antibiotics than in modern European countries, according to Todor Kantardzhiev, head of the National Center of Infectious and Parasitic Diseases.

In a Tuesday interview for the Bulgarian National Radio, he warned that antibiotic misuse increased the number of resistant infections and the number of deaths caused by them.

Citing data provided by the Center, he pointed out that although antibiotic resistance in Bulgaria had decreased substantially over the past 10 years, more changes were required, especially in the field of hospital care.

“Pneumococcal resistance to penicillin was 30%, now it is slightly above 15%,” he noted, adding that the positive trend was due to the increase popularity of microbiological tests to guide the choice of antibiotics.

“However, this is not the case in Bulgarian hospitals, where 2-3 times more antibiotics are prescribed than in Western Europe. We have calculated that around 60% of the Bulgarian parents take antibiotics from the first to the last day of their hospital stay,” he declared.