Enoxacin: in vitro efficacy and its future therapeutic role in the Pakistani health-care system.

Because laboratory microbiological diagnosis is not readily available for 80% of the total population of Pakistan (120 million people), clinicians in large rural areas have been compelled to use several antibiotics in any individual case of resistant and severe infection. This practice has resulted in an increasing number of resistant strains, particularly those of Salmonella, Pseudomonas, Escherichia coli, Klebsiella, Enterobacter, Staphylococcus, and Shigella. Also, multiple resistance to penicillin, ampicillin, carbenicillin, cotrimoxazole, chloramphenicol, fosfomycin, gentamicin, nalidixic acid, vancomycin, amoxicillin, cefotaxime, and cloxacillin has been recognized. In view of this limitation in antimicrobial therapy, enoxacin, a second-generation quinolone, has been assessed in vitro against resistant and other organisms, and its breakpoint sensitivity has been compared with another quinolone, ofloxacin. The findings indicate that new quinolones such as enoxacin may prove to be helpful in the treatment of individuals suffering from severe and resistant bacterial infections for which no microbiologic diagnosis is available.