ArticleTropical medicine and health2021
The use of antibiotics in COVID-19 management: a rapid review of national treatment guidelines in 10 African countries.
Article in Tropical medicine and health, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 73 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
73 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 150 citations in OpenAlex.
- Prevalence of antibiotic prescribing in COVID-19 patients in China and other low- and middle-income countries during the pandemic (December 2019-March 2021): a systematic review and meta-analysis.The Journal of antimicrobial chemotherapy · 2023Pooled it
- Prevalence of antibiotics prescription amongst patients with and without COVID-19 in low- and middle-income countries: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Pathogens and global health · 2023Pooled it
- Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Antibiotic Resistance Patterns of Common Bacterial Pathogens to Antibiotics in Northern Ghana.Journal of clinical laboratory analysis · 2026Article
- Dramatic increase in consumption of antibiotics in Colombia, 2020-2023Biomedica : revista del Instituto Nacional de Salud · 2026Article
- Mortality burden of bacterial antimicrobial resistance in East Africa: pooled analysis of modelled estimates.Tropical medicine and health · 2025Article
- The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the antibiotic consumption and resistance in Montenegro.European journal of public health · 2025Article
- Leveraging a people-centred approach to combat antimicrobial resistance in Africa.Tropical medicine and health · 2025Review
- Characterization of enteric pathogens in Harare, Zimbabwe using environmental surveillance and metagenomics.Journal of water and health · 2025Article
- Evaluation of the consumption pattern and efficacy of Linezolid in COVID-19 hospitalized patients in a hospital in Tehran-Iran.Daru : journal of Faculty of Pharmacy, Tehran University of Medical Sciences · 2025Article
- Ceftriaxone Resistance in the Surgical Adult Intensive Care Unit at Muhimbili National Hospital, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.The East African health research journal · 2025Article
- Patterns of In-patient Antibiotic Use among COVID-19 Patients in a Tertiary Government Hospital: A Retrospective Cross-sectional Survey.Acta medica Philippina · 2025Article
- A bioanalytically validated RP-HPLC method for simultaneous quantification of rivaroxaban, paracetamol, and ceftriaxone in human plasma: a combination used for COVID-19 management.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Secondary Bacterial Infections in Critically Ill COVID-19 Patients Admitted in the Intensive Care Unit of a Tertiary Hospital in Romania.Journal of clinical medicine · 2024Article
- Azithromycin Resistance Patterns in Escherichia coli and Shigella before and after COVID-19, Kenya.Emerging infectious diseases · 2024Article
- Hospital prescribing patterns of antibiotics in Zambia using the WHO prescribing indicators post-COVID-19 pandemic: findings and implications.JAC-antimicrobial resistance · 2024Article
- Reported antibiotic use among patients in the multicenter ANDEMIA infectious diseases surveillance study in sub-saharan Africa.Antimicrobial resistance and infection control · 2024Article
- Antimicrobial prescribing practices and factors associated with antimicrobial prescribing in hospitalized COVID-19 patients in Oyo state: A retrospective study.PLOS global public health · 2024Article
- Diagnostic and antibiotic use practices among COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 patients in the Indonesian National Referral Hospital.PloS one · 2024Article
- Antibiotic prescribing practices in community and clinical settings during the COVID-19 pandemic in Nairobi, Kenya.PLOS global public health · 2024Article
- Healthcare commissioners' experience with antibiotic resistance during the COVID-19 pandemic in Saudi Arabia: a qualitative study.Journal of pharmaceutical policy and practice · 2024Article
13 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors at 7 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Antimicrobial resistance is a hidden threat lurking behind the COVID-19 pandemic which has claimed thousands of lives prior to the emergence of the global outbreak. With a pandemic on the scale of COVID-19, antimicrobial resistance has the potential to become a double-edged sword with the overuse of antibiotics having the potential of taking us back to the pre-antibiotic era. Antimicrobial resistance is majorly attributed to widespread and unnecessary use of antibiotics, among other causes, which has facilitated the emergence and spread of resistant pathogens. Our study aimed to conduct a rapid review of national treatment guidelines for COVID-19 in 10 African countries (Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Liberia, Ethiopia, and Rwanda) and examined its implication for antimicrobial resistance response on the continent. Our findings revealed that various antibiotics, such as azithromycin, doxycycline, clarithromycin, ceftriaxone, erythromycin, amoxicillin, amoxicillin-clavulanic acid, ampicillin, gentamicin, benzylpenicillin, piperacillin/tazobactam, ciprofloxacin, ceftazidime, cefepime, vancomycin, meropenem, and cefuroxime among others, were recommended for use in the management of COVID-19. This is worrisome in that COVID-19 is a viral disease and only a few COVID-19 patients would have bacterial co-infection. Our study highlighted the need to emphasize prudent and judicious use of antibiotics in the management of COVID-19 in Africa.
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