Activity of twelve second-line antimicrobial agents against Mycobacterium tuberculosis in Taiwan.

Multidrug resistant (MDR) tuberculosis has emerged as a major public health problem worldwide. However, knowledge of the regional complete susceptibility to second-line drugs is rare, which impedes development of a global strategy of tuberculosis control. Presently, we determined the susceptibility of 125 isolates from southern Taiwan to 5 first-line and 12 second-line antituberculosis drugs.