Antibiotic resistance falls in Finland.A nationwide effort to limit erythromycin erythromycin /eryth·ro·my·cin/ (-mi´sin) a broad-spectrum antibiotic produced by Streptomyces erythreus; used against gram-positive bacteria and certain gram-negative bacteria, spirochetes, some rickettsiae, Entamoeba, and Mycoplasma pneumoniae; used in the form of the gluceptate, lactobionate, stearate, and other salts. prescriptions in Finland in the 1990s has short-circuited bacterial resistance there. Streptococcus hemolytic streptococcus any streptococcus capable of hemolyzing erythrocytes, classified as a-hemolytic type, producing a zone of greenish discoloration much smaller than the clear zone produced by the ß-hemolytic type about the colony on blood agar; and the ß-hemolytic type, producing a clear zone of hemolysis immediately around the colony on blood agar. The most virulent streptococci belong to the latter group. pyogenes had grown resistant to erythromycin, an antibiotic commonly prescribed for people who are allergic to penicillin but who have a respiratory or skin infection caused by group A streptococcus. As outpatient prescriptions of erythromycin dried up between 1991 and 1996, the resistance rate among group A streptococcus group A streptococcus n. bacteria isolated from throat swabs, pus pus (pus) a protein-rich liquid inflammation product made up of leukocytes, cellular debris, and a thin fluid (liquor puris). A common but virulent streptococcus that kills the tissue it infects and produces toxins that trigger a form of shock that affects the vital organs. pus (p  s)n. , and blood samples fell from 16.5 percent to 8.6 percent, Finnish researchers report in the Aug. 14 New England Journal OF Medicine. Led by a team at the National Public Health Institute in Turku Turku (t  r`k ), Swed. Åbo, city (1998 pop. 170,931), capital of Western Finland prov., SW Finland, at the mouth of the Aurajoki River on the Baltic Sea., the researchers documented the decline in resistance after analyzing 39,247 streptococcus samples. "It's a beautiful study," says Stuart Levy, director of the Center for Adaptation Genetics and Drug Resistance at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston. It says a lot for surveillance in the war on resistant bacteria, he adds.
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