Doctors in Shanghai have stopped prescribing antibiotics to patients who suffer from common colds in a bid to combat the growing resistance of some illnesses to such drugs.

The city's public health bureau released detailed instructions on the clinical use of antibiotics yesterday. According to the new rules, doctors must conclude, based on symptoms and laboratory test results, that a patient has been infected with bacteria before prescribing antibiotics. Patients with ordinary cases of the flu, measles or viral hepatitis will not be treated with antibiotics from now on.

The overuse of antibiotics has been a national problem in China.

In the past, serious, acute cases of pneumonia were uncommon at Nanjing's hospitals, according to Yangtze Evening News, but several such cases appeared in the last year alone. Some of these patients were even resistant to some antibiotics.

Doctors attributed the situation to the overuse of antibiotics.

"It takes a long time to develop a new drug," said Professor Yuan Kejian, vice-director of Shanghai's Ruijin Hospital. "Because of the over-use of antibiotics, bacteria develop stronger and stronger resistance to medicine."

Ni Yuxing, a professor at Ruijin Hospital, said that a few years ago, the bacteria staphylococcus aureus could be killed by several types of cephalosporins, but now only one antibiotic, Vanoomycin, is effective in treating this kind of infection.

"Doctors with proper training don't prescribe antibiotics at will," said a doctor surnamed Zhang at Shanghai Ren'Ai Hospital.

But it is not just doctors who are to blame for the over-use of antibiotics. Anyone could buy antibiotics without a prescription at most pharmacies across the country until last year.

It is still possible to buy antibiotics in many under-developed parts of China, where the regulations on medicine are not strictly observed.

"My mother is a typical case of antibiotic overuse," said Zhang Xiaotao, a young woman from east China's Shandong Province. "She takes these pills when she feels sick, and when it doesn't work, she goes to a doctor for a stronger pill."

(China Daily March 2, 2007)