Critical Quality Control Issues of Antibiotic Susceptibility Tests for Developing Countries

Antibiotic therapy has been the mainstay of treatment of bacterial infections and the initial successes of the earlier generations of antibiotics for treatment and prevention of bacterial infections spurred further efforts to discover newer antibiotics. Antibiotic Susceptibility Test (AST) is a standardized procedure usually carried out on cultivable bacterial pathogens to determine their sensitivity to specific antibiotics, and to guide physicians on the best antibiotic treatment regimens for specific infections. The quality assurance and control for antibiotic susceptibility tests should be prioritized in deliberate efforts to reduce the burden of antibiotic resistant bacterial infections in developing countries.