THE NEED FOR SURVEILLANCE FOR ANTIMICROBIAL RESISTANCE

Currently, collection of bacterial susceptibility data is very incomplete; national or international susceptibility data simply do not exist. The large volume of scientific publications on this subject contributes to the perception that bacterial resistance to antimicrobials is extensive and growing. However, only a very few papers address the epidemiology of bacterial resistance. Those papers that do report quantitatively on this topic are from hospitals that are systematically different from hospitals that do not publish. No one can deny the existence and the importance of drug resistance, but the sensational reports from the media are grossly untrue. Multidrug-resistant bacteria affect an extremely small proportion of patients. Most antibiotics still are highly effective and cure the majority of infections. It is proposed that medical microbiology laboratories report their susceptibility data on eight common species that constitute 68.5% of all isolates. Such reports could be analyzed and published yearly (Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol 1995;16:638-641).