[The Mycobacteria Working Group: Investigation of resistance of tuberculosis bacteria in Germany 1991 and 1992].

A tuberculosis caused by resistant or even multidrug-resistant TB bacilli seems to be of increasing importance in some parts of the world. An exact investigation of rates of initial and acquired drug resistance of tubercle bacilli for the whole state of Germany is--considering the corresponding technical, logistic and economic necessities--rather demanding. The "Arbeitskreis Mykobakterien" performed therefore, as a first step, an estimation of global resistance rates of tubercle bacilli in Germany based on questionnaires sent to TB laboratories throughout the country: only the first strain isolated in a patient in 1991 and 1992 should have been considered. The results are presented in Table 1.