ANTIMICROBIAL SUSCEPTIBILITY OF CLINICAL ISOLATES OF HAEMOPHILUS-INFLUENZAE TO AMPICILLIN SULBACTAM

A total of 1092 clinical isolates of Haemophilus influenzae (306 type b; 786 non-type-b), from five medical centers were obtained during 1987 and 1988. Disk diffusion antimicrobial susceptibilities were obtained for all isolates, and broth microdilution susceptibilities were obtained for 502 isolates. Beta-lactamase was produced by 34.3% of type-b and 22.1% of non-type-b isolates, with some geographic variations. Using disk diffusion antimicrobial susceptibility testing, all isolates were susceptible to ampicillin-sulbactam, ceftriaxone, cefuroxime, and rifampin; two isolates were resistant to chloramphenicol. Whether tested using a fixed ratio of ampicillin to sulbactam of 2:1 or a fixed concentration of sulbactam, the ampicillin-sulbactam combination demonstrated good activity against clinical isolates of H. influenzae. Only 8 of the 1092 isolates did not produce beta-lactamase but demonstrated MICs of ≥2 μg/ml for ampicillin. © 1990.