ABSTRACT
Slowly growing mycobacteria (SGM ) are distributed in the environment ,for example in soil and dirty water . SGM can cause human infections ,especially lung diseases .In this article ,first and second line antituberculous agents were ex‐amined in order to identify the optimum drugs for the treatment of SGM disorders .The fewest SGM in our study (4/34) were susceptible to isoniazid .Rifampicin (13/34) and ethambutol (14/34) were effective against similar numbers of strains .Ofloxa‐cin (23/34) ,kanamycin (26/34 ) , tobramycin (26/34 ) and streptomycin (27/34 ) were active against most of the tested strains .Ciprofloxacin (31/34) ,levofloxacin (31/34) ,amikacin (33/34) and capreomycin (33/34) showed an excellent range of activity .Moxifloxacin (34/34) showed the widest range of activity against the SGM species .Among the tested SGM spe‐cies ,M .simiae and M .af ricanum were resistant to the highest number of drugs .M .szulgai and M .duvalii were susceptible to all the first and second line antituberculous agents tested .Overall ,the second‐line antituberculous agents were good candi‐dates for the treatment of infection by SGM species and can be widely used in the therapy of SGM diseases .