Abstract:

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic led to rapid changes in demand and delivery of primary care services that could have led to increases in antibiotic prescribing. Following concerns about increased antibiotic use during the COVID-19 pandemic, trends of antibiotic prescribing at Bugando Medical Centre particularly in Outpatient Internal Medicine were evaluated. Antibiotics are among the most commonly prescribed medications in healthcare centres.

Method:All data concerning antibiotic prescribing was retrieved from the Electronic Health Management System (eHMS) at BMC and convenience sampling method was used to obtain antibiotic prescription files samples for the study period.

Results:A total of 600 antibiotic prescriptions were retrieved from the eHMS System and the results showed that the mostly prescribed antibiotic in 2019 was Amoxicillin/Clavulanic acid at 280 (46.7%), followed by Azithromycin 205 (34.2%). The least prescribed antibiotic to in 2019 was Cephalexin 43 (7.2%). This made Amoxicillin/Clavulanic acid the most prescribed antibiotic in outpatient Internal Medicine Department in 2019. The antibiotic prescriptions of selected antibiotics (Amoxicillin, Amoxicillin/Clavulanic acid, Azithromycin and Cephalexin) were 600. Among these, 315 (52.5%) were for Azithromycin followed by 216 (36.0%) for Amoxicillin/Clavulanic acid, Amoxicillin 48 (8.0%) and Cephalexin the least prescribed in 2020 at 21 (3.5%). This showed that in 2020 among all the selected antibiotics the mostly antibiotic prescribed was Azithromycin and the least prescribed was Cephalexin.
 
Discussion/conclusion: The results showed an increase in the prescriptions of Azithromycin during the pandemic, while there was a decrease in prescriptions of Amoxicillin/Clavulanic acid, Amoxicillin and Cephalexin during the COVID-19 pandemic. On the other hand, the decrease in the use of Amoxicillin and Cephalexin can reduce the level of resistance to pathogens while an increase in Azithromycin use may have consequences on the resistance levels of pathogens causing acute respiratory infections. Trends in antibiotic prescription data show that in May to November 2020 antibiotics were widely prescribed. There might have been high rates of respiratory viral infections in the community, compared with previous years. This may possibly be related to the corona virus disease 2019 pandemic.