Increasing incidence of resistance to antimicrobials in Sidamo.

This study compares the prevailing sensitivity of bacterial isolates to common antimicrobials during the two-year 1985-87, 1990-92 and 1996-97 periods at Yirga Alem Hospital in southern Ethiopia. All specimens were from patients attending the hospital. We studied 1371 specimens, 337,671 and 363 specimens from the periods 1985-87, 1990-92 and 1996-97, respectively. The study confirms earlier observations of widespread resistance to commonly used antibiotics. Significant increases in the rate of resistance during this thirteen-year period were observed for Neisseria gonorrhoea against erythromycin, trimethoprim-sulphamethoxazole and tetracyclines, for Escherichia coli against ampicillin and trimethoprim-sulphamethoxazole and for Proteus species against ampicillin. We observed a decrease in the prevalence of resistance for Klebsiella and Proteus species against chloramphenicol.