Archive for November 14th, 2008

American Family Physician - Macrolide resistance in Streptococcus pneumoniae

Friday, November 14th, 2008

Resistance to antibiotics by pathogens is an increasingly serious problem worldwide. By 1999, approximately 25 percent of isolates from invasive infections caused by Streptococcus pneumoniae in the United States and many other countries were resistant to macrolides. This rapid increase followed the introduction of the new macrolides azithromycin (Zithromax) and clarithromycin (Biaxin). Macrolide resistance was predominantly reported in pneumococcal serotypes 14, 19F, …