The situation is different in the UK, where policies exist for prescribing antibiotics, and the Philippines, where they are often not prescribed. But the principle is the same, high level recommendations have little effect unless people change their attitudes about use of antibiotics.
sars_notd_ virus was correct - samples should be taken, labelled correctly (), and cultured in the lab for the right treatment. Of course treatment with the antibiotic most likely to be effective is possible before the results are available, as in meningitis for example. But convenience and laziness top the list of causes of antibiotic resistance. Useless prescriptions may not directly harm the patients - although antibiotics have side effects - but they encourage resistance.
In the Philippines, I understand there's widespread self-treatment, without even a doctor's advice or prescription. "Gamot sa ubo / sipon / lagnat /sakit ng ulo " ( medicine for cough / cold / fever / headache), and the rest, are bought and the course is probably not completed if the patient happens to get better ! Not just respectable households (where much of the population stores unused drugs / medications ) but also sex workers ( increasing resistance in sexually transmitted diseases). The solution is not easy because too much restriction of availability of antibiotics - when not everyone can afford a doctor - could cause people to die who might have lived.
Right now, resistant superbugs affect mainly kids, the old, cancer patients, and chronically ill (especially HIV/AIDS). A resistant pandemic has not occurred in 65 years of antibiotic use. But the cost of treating one person with multi-drug resistant TB (450,000 new cases / year) is said to be 200 times greater than the less lethal type. A high medical and financial price for society's failure to protect a precious resource - antibiotics.
