Antibiotic Resistance in Typhoid Fever

Abstract

MANY authorities^{1 , 2} have recognized chloramphenicol as the preferred drug for the treatment of clinical typhoid fever. During the early months of 1972, an epidemic strain of Salmonella lyphosa resistant to chloramphenicol, tetracycline, streptomycin and sulfadiazine was identified in the area of Mexico City.^{3 , 4} Since June, 1972, a small number of cases among American citizens who had traveled to endemic areas of Mexico have been reported to the Center for Disease Control.^{5 , 6} The drug resistance is mediated in a degraded Vi(A) phage type of typhoid bacillus by an R-factor,^{7 , 8} and it is currently postulated that this same pattern of antibiotic resistance . . .