Ampicillin-resistant Hemophilus influenzae type b: a status report.

Abstract

For most pediatricians March 2, 1974 was a disquieting date. A security blanket which for ten years had soothed many anxieties was suddenly snatched away. That day9s issue of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (Center for Disease Control, 23:77, 1974) described the first two cases of illness due to ampicillin-resistant Hemophilus influenzae type b (H.I.T.B). Two infants with meningitis had been studied and found to have infections with organisms highly resistant to ampicillin. A Patuxent, Maryland, boy had died and an Atlanta, Georgia, boy had survived with a residual right-sided hemiparesis. The first infant succumbed after 35 hours of therapy with intravenously administered ampicillin at a dosage of 400 mg/kg/day.