Epidemiology of enterobacteria resistant to cefotaxime in hospital.

Cefotaxime treatment eliminates normally susceptible strains of enterobacteria from the digestive tract, and increases intestinal carriage of resistant enterobacteria in individuals. However the global rate of such carriage remains low in hospitalized patients and resistant strains are exceptionally isolated from bacteraemia in spite of an intensive use of this antibiotic. The epidemiology of resistant strains of enterobacteria has to be carefully monitored. The results obtained by the control of faecal carriage shows that this technique is a means of surveying evolution in this area.