A tax on antibiotics, proposed by a team of British economists from the University of East Anglia (UEA), Loughborough University and E.CA Economics, could help combat the emergence of superbugs that are invulnerable to drugs. In a study published in theInternational Journal of Industrial Organization Experts recall that antimicrobial resistance causes approximately 700 thousand deaths per year and, if uncontrolled, by 2050 could endanger 10 million lives per year with a loss of economic production equal to 100 trillion dollars.
Discourage the use of broad-spectrum antibacterial drugs
For the co-author of the work Farasat Bokhari, former member of the School of Economics UEA, now at Loughborough University, antibiotic resistance is “perhaps the next time bomb in the health system. In our analysis – he specifies – the financial burden of the tax” on these drugs “is not borne by patients, but rather by GPs who in some cases may overprescribe antibiotics”. The idea is to discourage the use of broad-spectrum antibacterial drugs, those most at risk of fueling the development of superbugs, consequently promoting the use of narrow-spectrum antibiotics, aimed at the pathogen responsible for the infection after testing to identify it.
Taxation
Using 10 years of data on monthly sales of antibiotics dispensed in UK pharmacies, and using specific economic models to consider the effect of different factors, the researchers examined the impact of two types of taxation.
A 20% tax on all antibiotics, applied to these drugs indiscriminately – it emerged – would reduce their total use by 12.7%, decreasing the use of broad-spectrum antibiotics by 29.4% alone; it would also translate into a welfare loss for the consumer equal to, in the United Kingdom, approximately 19.9 million pounds per year. If, however, the same 20% tax were applied only to broad-spectrum antibiotics, their use would decrease by 37.7%, the overall use of antibacterials would fall by just 2.38% and the welfare loss for the consumer would be limited to 4.8 million pounds per year.
