Epidemiology of drug resistance: the case of Staphylococcus aureus and coagulase-negative staphylococci infections.

OBJECTIVE To study the activity of several antibiotics against Staphylococcus spp. MATERIAL AND METHODS The study included 1209 strains of Staphylococcus spp. from two institutions; Instituto Nacional de Pediatría (National Institute of Pediatrics) and Hospital Infantil de México Federico Gómez (Mexico City Children's Hospital). Minimum Inhibitory Concentrations of all antibiotics were determined by the agar macrodilution technique and standard methods from the National Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards. RESULTS Resistance of S. aureus was 14.2% and that of coagulase-negative staphylococci was 53.4%. The activity of different antibiotics is presented in detail. CONCLUSIONS Surveillance of strains resistant to methicillin is necessary. The English version of this paper is available too at: http://www.insp.mx/salud/index.html.