January 27, 2012
With a new year comes new initiatives, and CDDEP is launching 2012 with a visualization series to help shed light on topics in health and development. We start with a graphic from our Global Antibiotic Resistance Partnership, on global trends in macrolide antibiotic use.
The graph shows retail sales of macrolide antibiotics across five regions, from 2005-2010. Macrolide use is steadily increasing across the developing world, while it is declining in Sweden and in the United States. Despite decreasing retail sales in the U.S., as of 2009 macrolides are the most prescribed antibiotic class in the country, active against a range of common bacterial infections. Overuse in the outpatient setting, particularly of broad-spectrum members (azythromycin, clarithromycin), has been linked to the rise of resistant pneumonia-causing bacteria.
New graphics will be posted every other week, and all visualizations are available to download in the Tools section of our website.
