© 2003 The British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy Influence of population density on antibiotic resistance

• Main Authors: N. Bruinsma, J. M. Hutchinson, A. E. Van Den Bogaard, H. Giamarellou, J. Degener, E. E. Stobberingh
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2003
• Subjects: Canada; Newfoundland
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.567.2765; http://jac.oxfordjournals.org/content/51/2/385.full.pdf

Antibiotic consumption and population density as a measure of crowding in the community were related to the prevalence of antibiotic resistance of three cities in three different countries: St Johns in Newfoundland (Canada), Athens in Greece and Groningen in The Netherlands. Anti-biotic consumption was expressed in DDD (defined daily dose), as DID (DDD/1000 inhabitants/ day) and as DSD (DDD/km2). The prevalence of antibiotic-resistant Escherichia coli and entero-cocci was determined in faecal samples of healthy volunteers. In both Newfoundland (28 DID) and Greece (29 DID) the overall consumption of antibiotics was more than three times higher compared with that of The Netherlands (9 DID). The lowest prevalence of resistant E. coli against the majority of antibiotics tested was found for the samples from Newfoundland and was significant (P < 0.05) for cefazolin, oxytetracycline and trimethoprim. A poor correlation between the number of DID and the prevalence of resistance was observed [the Pearson correlation