We examined the trends of current antibiotic usages in Korea by using two parameters; the cost of production, and the amount of antibiotics produced.
In 1993, the cost of production was 693 billion won, which was 5.3 times that of the 1981 figure, but the increment rate of the cost has slowed down since the early 1990s.
The most popular antibiotics produced were cephalosporins,penicillins, and aminoglycosides. In 1993, 270.5 billion won, 125.9 billion won, and 77.0 billion won were spent to produce these autibiotics respectively. The amount of antibiotics produced in the year 1993 wasa 333.2 ton of penicillins, 69.3 ton of cephalosporins, and 19.2 ton of aminoglycosides.
There seems to be a noticeable increase in the production of cephalosporins, macrolides, and quinolones, but a decrease in the production of chloramphenicol and sulfonamides. In recent years, the production of newer drugs such as imipenem and carumonam has increased remarkably.
There seems to be no remarkable change in the use of major antibiotics ; penicillins, cephalosporins, and aminoglycosides still remain to be the most commonly used antibioties, but the newer and more expensive antibiotics are becoming more popular.
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