of Telithromycin Activity the Winter of 2000-2001 and In Vitro Isolates in Germany during pneumoniae Streptococcus Erythromycin-Resistant Gene among ermB High Prevalence of the

isolates from outpatients withrespiratory tract infections were collected from 17 medicalmicrobiology laboratories throughout Germany during twosurveillance studies conducted between October 2000 andApril 2001. The inclusion of only one isolate per patient waspermitted. Susceptibility testing was performed by broth mi-crodilution with reference to the guidelines of the NationalCommittee of Clinical Laboratory Standards (9). Broth mi-crodilution plates were purchased from Merlin GmbH, Born-heim, Germany. The antibacterial agents tested were erythro-mycin, clindamycin, telithromycin, penicillin, tetracycline, andtrimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (1:19 ratio). NCCLS break-points were applied to categorize susceptibility patterns (10).Erythromycin-resistant isolates were tested for the presence ofthe