Use of antimicrobial agents and drug resistance

MN Swartz - New England Journal of Medicine, 1997 - Mass Medical Soc
MN Swartz
New England Journal of Medicine, 1997Mass Medical Soc
The globalization of business, travel, and communication has brought increased attention to
exchanges between farflung communities and countries. Similarly, awareness of the
potential globalization of the bacterial ecosystem has led to a greater awareness of the
interactions between community and hospital and between human and animal floras. The
optimism generated by the dawn of the antimicrobial era in the mid-1940s was soon
quenched by the emergence of penicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Whereas before …
The globalization of business, travel, and communication has brought increased attention to exchanges between farflung communities and countries. Similarly, awareness of the potential globalization of the bacterial ecosystem has led to a greater awareness of the interactions between community and hospital and between human and animal floras.
The optimism generated by the dawn of the antimicrobial era in the mid-1940s was soon quenched by the emergence of penicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Whereas before 1946 about 90 percent of S. aureus isolates in hospitals were susceptible to penicillin, 75 percent of isolates were resistant by 1952.1 At first, a distinction was made . . .
The New England Journal Of Medicine