Despite concerns about superbugs, Kiwi doctors are still prescribing antibiotics at twice the rate of some other countries.
Antibiotics are useless against viruses, but GPs often feel pressured into prescribing them to satisfy patients says Mark Thomas, the co-author of a new study looking at antibiotic use in New Zealand.
"We're using about twice as much as is used in Norway, Sweden or Denmark, and we're using about a quarter more per head of population than is used in the UK," he told Newshub.
"Patients have got into the habit of expecting to be prescribed antibiotics for coughs and colds and other conditions where antibiotics don't make a blind bit of difference."
The more we use antibiotic medicine, the faster bacteria evolve to survive it. The number of cases of antibiotic-resistant superbugs in New Zealand has been increasing in recent years - Ministry of Health data shows they approximately doubled between 2015 and 2018.
Earlier this year Australian scientists said they'd found evidence whooping cough was developing resistance to existing treatments, "morping into a superbug".
The new research, published on Friday in the New Zealand Medical Journal, shows after peaking in 2015, antibiotic prescriptions have dropped about 14 percent - mirroring a drop in other countries, such as Australia, the UK, Canada, Denmark and Sweden.
But New Zealand and Australian doctors dish out the most, by far - Kiwi doctors prescribing 22.5 doses per 1000 population per day in 2018. This is more than twice as high as prescription rates in Sweden and the Netherlands, 60 percent higher than in Denmark and slightly higher than the UK.
"Studies conducted in England and Sweden found that large, sustained reductions in antibiotic dispensing were not associated with an overall increase in the rate of serious infections," the study said.
Prescriptions for Māori and Pacific Islanders were at "about the right amount", Dr Thomas said, "but more of it needs to be for infections that genuinely need treatment, and less of it for viral infections".
Māori and Pacific Islanders generally need more antibiotics than others, the study said, because they experience higher rates of socioeconomic deprivation and as a result suffer more from infectious diseases that can be treated by antibiotics.
Non-Māori on the other hand were still being prescribed about 26 percent too much - and more than Māori, despite their overall better health.
"It does not make sense that the rate of dispensing of penicillins for people aged five-20 years of age was only 1.45 times higher in Pacific people, and 1.24 times higher in Māori people than in people of other ethnicities, when the incidence of rheumatic fever was 63 times higher in Pacific people and 27 times higher in Māori people, than in people of other ethnicities."
Rheumatic fever is caused by a bacteria, so can be treated with antibiotics.
"Prescribers should aim to further reduce inappropriate antibiotic prescribing, but also to increase appropriate antibiotic prescribing for these populations," the study concluded.
