Drug-resistant bacteria spreading in hospitals
New research from the Wellcome Sanger Institute has found that drug-resistant bacteria is spreading through hospitals in Europe, and it is hoped the results of the study will help control the spread of infections.
The results were published in Nature Microbiology; the Wellcome Sanger Institute’s Centre for Genomic Pathogen Surveillance conducted the research in collaboration with the University of Freiburg and other partners.
The survey, which is the largest of its kind, saw 2,000 samples of the pathogen Klebsiella pneumoniae collected from patients across 244 hospitals in 32 countries. Genomes of the samples were then sequenced, and the researchers identified a small number of genes that, when expressed, can cause resistance to carbapenem antibiotics (these antibiotics are the last line of defence in treating antibiotics).
It is believed that the heavy use of antibiotics in hospitals drives the spread of these highly resistant bacteria. “In the case of carbapenem-resistant K. pneumoniae, our findings imply hospitals are the key facilitator of transmission – over half of the samples carrying a carbapenemase gene were closely related to others collected from the same hospital, suggesting that the bacteria are spreading from person-to-person primarily within hospitals,” explained Dr Sophia David, first author of the study, who is based at the Centre for Genomic Pathogen Surveillance.
Professor Hajo Grundmann, co-lead author and Head of the Institute for Infection Prevention and Hospital Hygiene at the Medical Centre, University of Freiburg, said that the research emphasises the importance of infection control and ongoing genomic surveillance of antibiotic-resistant bacteria to ensure new resistant strains are detected early and action is taken to combat the spread of antibiotic resistance.