A preliminary investigation of antibiotic resistance in Enterobacteriaceae isolated from children with diarrhoea from four developing countries.

The prevalence of resistance to commonly used antibiotics was investigated in groups of children from four developing countries, Peru, Belize, Zaire and Sudan. Enterobacteriaceae spp. isolated from faeces of children with diarrhoea were tested for sensitivity to ampicillin, tetracycline, sulphonamide, trimethoprim, streptomycin and chloramphenicol. Overall, the highest prevalence of resistance was to sulphonamide (56% of children) and the lowest was to chloramphenicol (19% of children). For individual locations, isolates from Sudan had the highest prevalence of antibiotic resistance, 65% of the isolates being resistant to ampicillin, tetracycline, trimethoprim and streptomycin. Transfer of resistance was studied for some isolates using Escherichia coli Hb101 as recipient.