Letters

I WAS READING with great interest the article by Magin et al published in Australian Journal of General Practice in January–February 2022, titled ‘Evidence-based strategies for better antibiotic prescribing’.¹ I wanted to clarify a minor point. In the article the authors briefly mentioned a randomised controlled trial (RCT) conducted in Pakistan comparing amoxicillin versus placebo for mild-to-moderate pneumonia,² stating that: ‘a recent RCT of antibiotics versus placebo in children with mild-to-moderate pneumonia in Pakistan showed that placebo was non-inferior to antibiotics’.¹ However, when I referred to the published results of the trial, it was actually the opposite. The primary outcome of treatment failure at day 3 was 4.9% for placebo and 2.6% for amoxicillin, a difference of 2.3% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.9, 3.7) higher in the placebo group.²