Waqar Hussain, Aniqa Haider, Ghazala Jaffery, Mohammad Aslam, Akbar Malik.
Ampicillin: Still the drug of choice in Enteric Fever.
Pak Paed J Nov ;26(3):133-37.

Objectives: Typhoid fever is an important public health problem in the developing world. The new Multi drug resistant typhoid fever poses a great challenge to medical profession particularly the pediatricians. Irrational use of second line drugs are posing considerable problems in the management of typhoid fever. This study was meant to assess the comparative efficacy of high dose ampicillin versus third generation cephalosporins and quinolones in the treatment of typhoid fever. Methods: A total of 75 patients from July 2000 to July 2001, having strong clinical suspicion of enteric fever were enrolled. Important laboratory investigations included widal test, typhidot test and blood culture. Results: Out of cases admitted with strong suspicion of enteric fever, sensitivity to ampicillin was 68% (51 patients), 21% (16 patients) responded to quinolones and in 11 % cases (8 patients), ceftriaxone was effective. Conclusions: Ampicillin is likely to be effective in more than 50% of cases admitted with strong suspicion of typhoid fever. The study shows that even after the development of multi drug resistant strains of salmonella typhi, ampicillin in high doses is still the drug of choice in most of the cases and should be tried first in all cases.

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