RESUMEN
There has been a rapid increase in the incidence of infection and colonization with vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) in American and European hospitals in the last six years, with fecal carriage reported to be as high as 86% on some services. In order to determine the frequency of VRE as normal flora of the intestine in Saudi patients, microbiological analysis of stool specimens from 4276 patients from a tertiary care referral hospital was performed. VRE, identified as Enterococcus faecium, was found in six patients. None of the patients had any clinical disease associated with VRE. Five were hospitalized patients, four with severe underlying diseases; five had a history of prior antimicrobial therapy with broad-spectrum antibodies and two of them were treated with vancomycin.
RESUMEN
The antibacterial activity of the recently developed ss-lactamase inhibitor tazobactam with and without piperacillin was studied in recent clinical isolates from patients at a tertiary care center. Although tazobactam by itself had little or no antibacterial activity, the combination with piperacillin was highly effective against piperacillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and Enterococci. It was also significantly more inhibitory than piperacillin towards almost all members of Enterobacteriaceae and Pseudomonas aeruginosa tested. The activity was compared with another commercially available combination of penicillin (amoxicillin and ss-lactamase inhibitor, clavulanic acid), and other drugs commonly used in clinical practice.
RESUMEN
In vitro antibacterial activity of the new macrolide azithromycin was tested against 116 strains of Brucella melitensis, isolated from 115 patients in a major tertiary care referral center. Eighty-seven percent of the strains were inhibited by 1.0 mg/l and all the 116 strains by 2.0 mg/l of azithromycin. Comparison was made with tetracycline, gentamicin, trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole, rifampicin and ciprofloxacin. All the isolates were susceptible to gentamicin, tetracycline, trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole, rifampicin. One hundred and fifteen of the 115 strains were also susceptible to ciprofloxacin.