Low Occurrence of Tuberculosis Drug Resistance among Pulmonary Tuberculosis Patients from an Urban Setting, with a Long-Running DOTS Program in Zambia.

We set out to determine the levels of Mycobacterium tuberculosis resistance to first- and second-line TB drugs in an urban population in Zambia. Sputum samples were collected consecutively from all smear-positive, new and previously treated patients, from four diagnostic centres in Ndola between January and July 2006. Drug susceptibility testing was performed using the proportion method against four first- and two second-line TB drugs.