COVID-19 pandemic is a «pandemic» of antimicrobial therapy

Synopalnikov, A. I.

The article presents a critical analysis of antibiotic usage tactics in the treatment of patients with COVID-19 existing in Russian and foreign healthcare, and discusses the possible causes of unjustified antibiotic aggression in this category of patients. The potential negative consequences of the widespread use of antibiotics in patients carrying a new coronavirus infection are analyzed: life-threatening cardiotoxicity in patients with the simultaneous administration of such a “popular” candidate etiologic therapy as a combination of azithromycin and hydroxychloroquine, the potential development of other serious adverse drug reactions (in particular, the development of an antibiotic-associated pseudomembranous colitis, etc.), the expected dramatic increase in the secondary drug resistance of potentially pathogenic microorganisms to widely and often prescribed antibiotics. © 2021, Interregional Association for Clinical Microbiology and Antimicrobial Chemotherapy. All rights reserved.