Vol.72 No.2 March 2024
Examination of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on antimicrobial consumption: a single-facility retrospective study in a designated medical institution for infectious diseases
1)Department of Pharmacy, Tokyo Metropolitan Ebara Hospital, 4-5-10 Higashiyukigaya, Ota-ku, Tokyo, Japan
Abstract
The Tokyo Metropolitan Ebara Hospital has accepted patients since the early stages of the COVID-19 epidemic as a designated medical institution for Category I and II Infectious Diseases. At the beginning of the pandemic, the majority of patients were asymptomatic or had mild infection, but as the infection spread, the number of patients with oxygen demand increased. The rate of patients with COVID-19 in our inpatient population has increased significantly ever since the hospital became a focus center for COVID-19 in January 2021. Therefore, we investigated the impact of COVID-19 hospitalizations on the antimicrobial consumption at our institution.
We investigated the rates of COVID-19 hospitalizations and severe COVID-19 hospitalizations in 2020 and 2021, and compared the consumption of injectable antimicrobials from the years 2019 to 2021. We classified antimicrobials into all-injection antimicrobials, anti-pseudomonas agents, anti-MRSA agents, and access-category antimicrobials according to the AWaRe classification. There were no significant differences in the consumption of anti-pseudomonas agents and anti-MRSA agents after the onset as compared with before the onset of the pandemic, although the rates of COVID-19 hospitalizations and severe COVID-19 hospitalizations increased in 2021. In addition, the rate of COVID-19 hospitalizations showed a strong negative correlation with the consumption of all-injection antimicrobials and access agents, and a weak negative correlation with the consumption of anti-pseudomonas agents.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the consumption of all-injection antimicrobials decreased, and there was a particularly strong negative correlation between the rate of COVID-19 hospitalizations and the consumption of antimicrobials. Even in 2021, when the number of severe COVID-19 hospitalizations increased, the consumption of anti-pseudomonas agents and anti-MRSA agents did not increase.
Key word
COVID-19, antimicrobial consumption, antimicrobial resistance, co-infection
Received
June 21, 2023
Accepted
November 20, 2023
Jpn. J. Chemother. 72 (2): 141-147, 2024
