Аннотация:The global increase in tuberculosis which has occurred in the 1980s and 1990s, and the associated re-emergence of resistance to antituberculous drugs, has focused attention on recent trends in resistance in Europe and the United States.1–3 In the United Kingdom overall drug resistance levels have been low.4 A surveillance system, the UK Mycobacterial Resistance Network (MYCOBNET), was established in 1994 by the Public Health Laboratory Service to record drug resistance in laboratory isolates of tuberculosis. We used data from this network to examine resistance among people with newly diagnosed tuberculosis.
We analysed the data on initial isolates of Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex referred to United Kingdom reference laboratories5 during 1994 to 1996. Initial isolates were defined as the first positive culture from a person from whom no positive culture had been recorded during the past 12 months. Since M bovis isolates are intrinsically resistant to pyrazinamide …
