Our weekly wrap-up of antimicrobial stewardship & antimicrobial resistance scans
Funds for new solutions for infectious diseases, antimicrobial resistance
Originally published by CIDRAP News Jul 22
The London School and Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) announced yesterday that a knowledge exchange program led by the Royal Veterinary College, known as Bloomsbury SET, has received a total of £1.9 million ($2.6 million) from Research England for a 1-year project. The effort will engage businesses to deliver vaccines, diagnostics, and treatments to battle infectious diseases and antimicrobial resistance in animals and people.
One of the goals of the program—called the Impact Connector—is to build support for commercializing research across partner groups and collaborate across geographic regions. Components will include product development workshops, skills programs to commercialize research, and activities to support connections between groups.
The program will also provide small grants to encourage new collaborations.
Hannah Whiteman, BSc Msc, PhD, head of strategic research at LSHTM, said, "The programme will empower our innovators across career stages with training, funding, and opportunities to forge new external industrial networks and advance their technologies closer to delivering societal and economic impact."
Jul 21 LSHTM press release
Canadian One Health report tackles antimicrobial resistance
Originally published by CIDRAP News Jul 21
The Canadian Veterinary Medical Association (CVMA) and the country's Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Network have published a new One Health–focused report that proposes improvements to a pan-Canadian AMR governance structure and optimal models for responding to AMR.
The report, "Strengthening Governance of the Antimicrobial Resistance Response Across One Health in Canada," proposed two approaches, or models, to address the AMR crisis. It says any approach must create connections and foster knowledge-sharing across One Health and across Canada, and it must increase capacity to accelerate action and deliver meaningful solutions.
The first model, called the AMR Network, "appeals to those who view the AMR ecosystem in Canada as complex, both in terms of the diversity of stakeholders involved and the range of actions that are required to address the issue at hand," according to the report. It gives One Health experts control of priorities.
The second model, dubbed the AMR Center, adopts a classic top-down approach and "enables a comprehensive approach to selecting its priorities, choosing to make meaningful impact in a select number of priority areas."
In a statement yesterday by the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), Canadian Health Minister Patty Hajdu, MPA, said, "This report will help all parties move toward a One Health approach to tackle this universal issue. It will also serve as an important tool for discussions alongside the work the federal government is undertaking with provincial and territorial partners and with stakeholders to mitigate the potential impact of AMR and protect the health of Canadians."
PHAC funded the AMR Network to explore governance models that unite diverse stakeholders.
Jul 19 CVMA report
Jul 20 PHAC statement
Study ties superbug prevalence in the ED to ambulance rides
Originally published by CIDRAP News Jul 21
A study by Duke University scientists today reveals that patients arriving at their emergency department (ED) via ambulance were almost four times more likely to have methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) or vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus (VRE) colonization or infection than those who didn't arrive by ambulance, though numbers of both were small.
The single-center retrospective cohort study, published in Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology, involved 11,324 patients from 2016 to 2019. About one third (3,903) were in the ambulance group, with the remainder in the unexposed group.
Among them, 9 patients (0.08%) tested positive for MRSA and 3 (0.03%) for VRE. The 30-day prevalence of MRSA or VRE was larger in the ambulance group than in the unexposed group: 8 (0.20%) and 4 (0.05%), respectively. Patients who arrived at the ED via ambulance were almost four times more likely to have MRSA or VRE within 30 days of their encounter (relative risk, 3.72; 95% confidence interval, 1.09 to 12.71; P = .04).
The authors say a strength of their study is its stringent inclusion criteria to assess multidrug-resistant organism (MDRO) prevalence, but they also note that the study design did not account for all confounders. They write, "To our knowledge, our study represents the first controlled and matched analysis to evaluate the impact of ambulance exposure on the development of MDROs."
Jul 21 Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol study
ECDC notes alarming healthcare rise of OXA-244–producing E coli
Originally published by CIDRAP News Jul 20
In an update on a healthcare-related outbreak of OXA-244–producing Escherichia coli in Norway, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said today that cases have doubled in the main cluster, and three new countries have reported cases.
Following its original risk assessment on Feb 18 after Norway reported 12 cases, health officials asked countries to submit samples for sequencing. Of 458 E coli ST38 isolates, 370 carried the blaOXA-244 gene encoding for the OXA-244 carbapenemase, which has the potential to confer resistance to the class of antibiotics known as carbapenems.
The isolates included several clusters, including a large one with 225 closely related isolates. Of those, 210 were from 11 countries in Europe and the United Kingdom. Fifteen were from other countries. People in the large cluster have a median age of 51, with a high proportion from women and samples frequently isolated from urine.
The ECDC said so far the source is unclear, and community transmission seems to be the main route of spread. Travel data are sparse but hint at North Africa or the Middle East as possible sources, consistent with the regions with previous links to OXA-48–like carbapenemases. It added that travel alone can't explain the rapid spread to 13 different European countries. A common animal or food source is also a possibility that requires further investigation, the agency said.
Little is known about the clinical consequences of carbapenems for OXA-244 E coli infections, but ECDC said the situation is concerning, given that OXA-48 like carbapenemases have been linked to treatment failures.
Jul 20 ECDC update