Giving antibiotics to patients in intensive care units as a precaution saves lives, Reuters reported citing a major Dutch study published today. The findings in the New England Journal of Medicine suggest the benefits of administering antibiotics right away, even before an infection develops, outweigh the risks people will develop resistance to them, the researchers said. "We have seen that using antibiotics clearly results in a reduction in the number of deaths and intensive care units should make use of this knowledge," Anne Marie de Smet, a researcher at University Medical Center Utrecht, said in a statement. The World Health Organisation cites hospital-acquired infections as a major cause of death and disability worldwide and experts have been saying for year that poor hospital practices spread dangerous bacteria.
