It is a familiar scenario at clinics across the city: a patient shows up with sniffles and a sore throat and walks out with a plastic bag of different coloured pills - including an antibiotic for a sore throat that does not require such treatment.
Frequently patients are also given only about half the drugs they need to complete the course of antibiotics, for reasons including the fact that their insurance limits medication to a few days at a time.
These practices, which continue despite repeated advice from medical experts, contribute to the risk of the development of drug-resistant superbugs.
Care is needed in diagnosis, the experts say, because only 10 per cent of sore throats are caused by the streptococcus bacteria, requiring antibiotics. They say doctors also need to take more time to explain to patients why proper use of the drugs is necessary.
One of four doctors a Post reporter visited for treatment of common flu symptoms prescribed antibiotics. A doctor in Kwai Fong prescribed the first-line antibiotic Ampiclox to the reporter after she complained of headache, sore throat and fatigue.
The doctor said a seven-day course of antibiotics would be needed for the sore throat, but only prescribed it for four days and asked the reporter to come back later to get the remaining medicine.