MEDICAL AND VETERINARY USE OF ANTIMICROBIAL AGENTS - IMPLICATIONS FORPUBLIC-HEALTH - A CLINICIAN VIEW ON ANTIMICROBIAL RESISTANCE

It is often proposed that the indiscriminate use of antimicrobial agen ts in the veterinary field leads to increased resistance in bacteria p athogenic to humans. Although for human medicine there is some potenti al danger behind the use of antimicrobial agents in animals, very few species (such as Staphylococci, Salmonella, Escherichia coli, Yersinia and Campylobacter) isolated in animals, which are also pathogenic to man, have been mentioned in the literature. The present paper analyzes the areas and bacteria where the clinician faces problems in the trea tment of infection in man.