The amount of outpatient antibiotic prescriptions in Korea had changed dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020 and 2021, early stages of the pandemic, antibiotic prescriptions dropped sharply but then surged in 2022.

In contrast, the proportion of cephalosporin and quinolone antibiotic prescriptions, which are more powerful than other antibiotics, increased in 2020 and 2021 and then decreased in 2022.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare released the "Healthcare Quality Statistics" that contained the above findings on the 24th. The MOHW releases this data annually for comparative statistics among OECD countries. One of the statistical items examines outpatient antibiotic prescripti