South Korea is home to some of the most difficult bugs in the world. The country has achieved this dubious distinction in part by antibiotics readily available. Now it is finally cracking down by requiring doctors' prescriptions.
For decades, Korea has allowed pharmacists to sell drugs freely as a way to help people who were too poor to see doctors. Ironically, the practice has become a lucrative sideline for physicians, who supplemented their income by doubling pharmacists.
The long-term result of this policy, combined with the spread of resistant clones elsewhere, was a Sky-high rate of resistance to antibiotics that bacteria evolve enthusiastically in response to repeated challenges. According to a 1997 study by Song Jae Hoon, head of the infectious diseases division at Samsung Medical Center in Seoul, more than 80% of pneumococci were resistant to penicillin. The rate of resistance to antibiotics 10 others have also surpassed those of nine other Asian countries studied.
The government finally responded to the problem by requiring patients to get doctors' prescriptions for most drugs. The new law came into force on July 1, triggering an unprecedented strike six days by doctors. But some older antibiotics are still exempt from the new law - the Korean Medical Association says that the majority of government policy makers and advisers are pharmacists
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