Follow up on this—I downgraded my prioritization of this as an intervention after talking to a friend in Nairobi who told me that overperscription of anti-biotics is a huge issue in Nairobi. In lots of neighbourhoods, the informal medical clinic will just prescribe you strong antibiotics for relatively mild symptoms.
This made me
1. doubt that people will use randomly distributed antibiotics correctly—so less upside
2. give more credence to the idea that passing them out randomly could increase antibody resistance—potential downside
Correct downsides! Another is that when people physically have medication already from a handout, they often just take that no matter what sickness they get, which can be really dangerous.
Along a similar ish lines, there has been a bunch of research though on giving all newborns for example antibiotics and prophylactic malaria treatment, and in some high risk circumstances just swallowing antibiotics even when you are not sick may do more good than harm. It’s complicated.
Follow up on this—I downgraded my prioritization of this as an intervention after talking to a friend in Nairobi who told me that overperscription of anti-biotics is a huge issue in Nairobi. In lots of neighbourhoods, the informal medical clinic will just prescribe you strong antibiotics for relatively mild symptoms.
This made me
1. doubt that people will use randomly distributed antibiotics correctly—so less upside
2. give more credence to the idea that passing them out randomly could increase antibody resistance—potential downside
Correct downsides! Another is that when people physically have medication already from a handout, they often just take that no matter what sickness they get, which can be really dangerous.
Along a similar ish lines, there has been a bunch of research though on giving all newborns for example antibiotics and prophylactic malaria treatment, and in some high risk circumstances just swallowing antibiotics even when you are not sick may do more good than harm. It’s complicated.