Antibiotics fail in treatment of acute infantile diarrhea.

To evaluate the effect of anitbiotics on the duration and severity of diarrhea 500 children under 2 years of age with acute diarrhea were randomly assigned to 5 treatment groups: chloramphenicol streptomycin trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole neomycin and no antibiotic. Children in all 5 groups were given oral rehydration. There was a significant reduction in the frequency of diarrheal output in the oral rehydration-only group compared with the antibiotic groups. In addition the mean duration of the diarrheal episode was 3.7 days among infants receiving only oral rehydration compared with 4.5-5.1 days among those treated with antibiotics and oral rehydration. Vomiting was significantly less frequent when antibiotics were not administered. Bacterial pathogens were identified in 40% of the 500 cases; however the majority of the pathogens isolated proved to be multiresistant to the commonly used antibiotics. These findings suggest that aside from cases of cholera shigella dysentery and giardiasis antibiotics have no place in the treatment of diarrhea. Fluid therapy alone is sufficient in the majority of cases.