ABUSE OF ANTIBIOTICS IN CHINA AND ITS POTENTIAL INTERFERENCE IN DETERMINING THE ETIOLOGY OF PEDIATRIC BACTERIAL DISEASES

There is scant information about the etiology and epidemiology of bact erial diseases of infants and children in China because of very little success with bacterial culture. This study describes the severity of abuse of antibiotics among Chinese pediatricians and this abuse's pote ntial interference in determining the etiology of bacterial diseases. According to a survey in Beijing Children's Hospital more than 98% of the patients in the Outpatient Department who were diagnosed with comm on cold were given antibiotics by physicians. More than one-third of t he patients had been taking antibiotics before coming to the hospital. Using a sensitive Staphylococcus aureus assay we found that 70% of bl ood samples and 43% of cerebrospinal fluid samples from the patients w ith bacterial meningitis and pneumonia contained antibacterial activit y. Bacteria were recovered significantly less often from the samples w ith antibacterial activity than from those who did not from which anti biotic was not recovered, both in blood (5.3% vs. 12.5%) and in cerebr ospinal fluid (2.5% vs. 14.8%). This study indicates that antibiotic a buse is a severe problem in China and that judicious use of antibiotic s is urgently needed.