WHO Strongly Advises Against Regular Antibiotic Use for COVID-19 Patients
GENEVA, Switzerland – August 7, 2025: The World Health Organization (WHO) just dropped some updated guidelines, strongly advising against giving antibiotics to COVID-19 patients unless there’s a real suspicion of a bacterial infection happening at the same time. This is a big deal because way too many antibiotics were used during the pandemic. It didn’t even help patients get better, and it made the whole antibiotic resistance thing way worse. These guidelines are based on looking at a bunch of patient info, and they’re meant to cut down on unnecessary prescriptions and keep public health safe in the long run.
New Guidelines Tackle Overuse
These updated recommendations are a major change from how things were at the start of the pandemic. The new advice is simple: if you have mild COVID-19 and there’s not a good reason to think you have a bacterial infection too, don’t use antibiotics at all.
If you’re really sick with COVID-19, they’re sort of suggesting you still avoid antibiotics if you don’t suspect a bacterial infection. It’s a small difference, but it’s about being careful with really sick people while still trying to use antibiotics wisely. Basically, empirical antibiotics are what you give when you think there’s an infection, but you don’t know exactly what’s causing it.
The WHO is doing this because, well, people were using antibiotics way too much for COVID-19. One report said only 8% of hospitalized COVID-19 patients had a bacterial infection, but 75% got antibiotics just in case. Some places were even worse, with up to 83% of patients getting them.
This overuse is a big reason why we have so much antimicrobial resistance (AMR). AMR is when infections become harder to treat, which means the disease spreads more, people get sicker, and more people die. So, WHO’s new guidelines are trying to fix this problem that the pandemic made even worse.
The Science Behind It
COVID-19 is from a virus, not bacteria. Antibiotics only work on bacteria. So, using them for a virus doesn’t do anything to help.
A review of COVID-19 patients showed that antibiotics didn’t make people without a bacterial infection any better. Actually, it could hurt them with side effects and by creating superbugs that resist treatment. That’s why the guidelines were updated.
Also, COVID-19 isn’t as bad as it used to be, thanks to vaccines and more people being immune. COVID-19 care is now more like regular healthcare, so they had to rethink the guidelines.
What This Means for Hospitals and Health Systems
The WHO wants these new recommendations to be used by everyone: doctors, nurses, hospital managers, you name it. The point is to use antibiotics only when needed. If the WHO gives clear advice, hopefully, doctors won’t feel like they have to prescribe antibiotics “just in case.
When the pandemic was crazy, hospitals were packed, and infectious disease experts weren’t always involved in treating patients. This meant that using antibiotics wisely wasn’t always a priority. These guidelines are a reminder to get back to good habits.
This also helps with the big effort to fight AMR. The COVID-19 pandemic messed up years of progress, especially in hospitals. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) even said that hospital infections that resist treatment went up by 15% in the first year of the pandemic. So, the WHO is trying to stop things from getting worse.
How We Got Here and What’s Next
At the start of the pandemic, when no one knew what was going on, some doctors used antibiotics just in case, thinking there might be a bacterial infection. That made sense at the time. But now that we understand COVID-19 better, we know those infections are pretty rare.
The new WHO guidelines make this official and give clear, proven advice. It’s part of a bigger plan to focus on AMR, which could kill 10 million people a year by 2050 if we don’t do something. These guidelines are a key tool in that fight.
Going forward, the WHO will keep working to manage COVID-19 like any other illness. They’ll also watch out for any new virus versions and how bad they might be. Using antibiotics wisely will probably be a big part of how we handle infections in the future. Hopefully, this will not only help patients with COVID-19 but also help us fight the serious threat of antibiotic resistance.
