[Criterium pencil mines as an alternative to platinum rods (Inoclic) in achievement of the antibiogram in agar medium for countries with limited resources?]

The realization of the antibiotic susceptibility test in agar is the routine bacteriological examination for the determination and monitoring of bacterial susceptibility to antibiotics. In this study, we report the comparative results between pencil leads for criterium, as an alternative to platinum rods in the realization of the antibiotic susceptibility test. Experimental study evaluating the comparability of the results between Criterium and Inoclic mines (by counting bacterial cells on agar after 5 successive dilutions of reason 10 from a bacterial suspension obtained after piercing through a colony; by measuring the inhibition diameters of 4 ATCC reference bacterial strains on an antibiogram in an agar medium) and evaluating the sterility of the criterium mines by culturing them on enriched broth (heart - brain type). 42 bacterial strains were used for bacterial cell counting. The results were of the same order of magnitude (10 Criterium mines seem to be a serious and less expensive alternative to Inoclic for the realization of antibiotic susceptibility testing in our resource-limited countries.