Today, those drugs largely are ineffective, according to the report. Worldwide, as many as 2 percent of the 16 million people with tuberculosis have strains that are resistant to multi-drug treatments. In Estonia, Latvia, and parts of China and Russia, more than 10 percent of TB patients have strains that are resistant to two potent medications. And an estimated 5,000 Americans may have come down with more serious food poisoning from antibiotic-resistant germs in chickens during 1998, the report says. According to a 1998 report by the Institute of Medicine, up to 50 percent of antibiotics are prescribed unnecessarily.
Many patients compound the problem.
A recent survey showed that half of patients do not finish their prescribed course of antibiotics. Most respondents said they stopped taking their drugs when they felt better. The problem is that an abbreviated course of antibiotics favors the development of resistant strains. U.S. and Canadian doctors are estimated to overprescribe antibiotics by 50 percent, the WHO report said. People may buy a few doses of antibiotics at a market without a doctor's exam.