... this from happening on a massive scale, the use of antibiotics should be kept to a minimum and there should be larger investments into alternative treatments. During 1979-1987, 0.02% of pneumococcus strains were penicillin resistent in 13 hospitals in 12 states and in 1995, the figure had increased to 6.6% (3). This shows how quickly the resistance of a particular strain can widely increase and so action against the use of antibiotics must take place as quickly as possible. An example of the effect of resistant bacteria occured in 1968, when 12,500 were killed in an epidemic of Shigella diarrhea (1). This bacterium was resistant to 4 different antibiotics and was caused by a plasmid which was able to transfer from one bacterium to another. In this way, the resistance is able to spread quickly and cause problems. The cost of antibiotic resistance in the USA was estimated at over ...

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