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Medical professionals do not rule out the link between Coronavirus deaths and antibiotic use

Healthcare workers assistHealthcare workers assist a COVID-19 patient at a library that was turned into an intensive care unit (ICU) at Germans Trias i Pujol hospital in Badalona, Barcelona province, Spain, April 1, 2020. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

Norwegian medical professionals do not exclude the link between coronavirus  deaths and antibiotic resistance in southern European countries but call for more knowledge.

High consumption and resistance to antibiotics in southern European countries could be a possible explanation why countries such as Italy have had high death rates among people with Covid-19.

Many have assumed that it is not the virus itself that is the cause of death, but that people have died from bacterial infections caused by resistant microbes.

Norwegian professionals that Dagens Medisin spoke to, said they now do not disregard that there may be a connection.

“Although we do not have any figures yet, it is certain that if you get pneumonia in countries with a lot of antibiotic resistance, you will see a higher death rate,” said Professor Dag Berild, an antibiotics researcher.

A publication has emerged in Wuhan, China that states that 95 percent of Covid-19 patients received antibiotics.

However, among the professional experts that Dagens Medisin spoke to, there were reservations about the theory that antibiotic resistance makes southern Europeans with coronavirus infection more vulnerable. The professionals have called for more research.

Gunnar Skov Simonsen at the University Hospital in Northern Norway pointed out, among other things, that the Netherlands has a low incidence of antibiotic resistance, while the death rate among Covid-19 patients is high.

© NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today

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