How we dispose waste (both human and animal) may have a significant impact on how we deal with antimicrobial resistance
Speaking during the World Antibiotic Awareness Week in Kenya, Prof Eric Fevre, an infectious disease scientist jointly working with the University of Liverpool and ILRI noted that how we dispose waste (both human and animal) may have a significant impact on how we deal with antimicrobial resistance evolving from the environment.
The study conducted by Prof Eric’s team investigated the overlap between sympatric wildlife, livestock, and their shared environment across the city of Nairobi, Kenya. Sampling was done across different socio-economic groups. The team also collected environmental data to understand typology. Epidemiologically structured comparative analysis of phenotypic antimicrobial resistance charaterization in sympatric wildlife, livestock, humans and the environment in an urban setting was carried out. Samples were collected from 75 wildlife species (birds and mammals), 13 livestock species, 333 humans and 277 external environmental samples. As you go east across the east you get more antibiotic resistance and across.
Take home messages from the presentation
- There is need to study the epidemiology of plasmids as they are a fundamental unit of transmission
- Livestock and humans carry equally resistant flora in complex urban settings
- Peri-domestic wildlife harvest resistant genes from the environment and disseminate them
- Use of manure for farming is a risk factor for AMR spread in humans
- It is challenging to show any directionality in resistance sharing between livestock/food animals and human
- Management of human and animal waste should be a key feature in the prevention and containment of antimicrobial resistance
- Cities need to critically think on how to effectively manage waste
- In an urban city like Nairobi it is not possible to point to livestock as a sole and specific risk factor for transfer of AMR.
Further readings
- Muloi, D., Ward, M. J., Pedersen, A. B., Fevre, E. M., Woolhouse, M. E. J., & van Bunnik, B. A. D. (2018). Are Food Animals Responsible for Transfer of Antimicrobial-Resistant Escherichia coli or Their Resistance Determinants to Human Populations? A Systematic Review. Foodborne Pathogens And Disease, 15(8), 467-474. doi:10.1089/fpd.2017.2411
- Hassell, J. M., Begon, M., Ward, M. J., & Fèvre, E. M. (2017). Urbanization and Disease Emergence: Dynamics at the Wildlife–Livestock–Human Interface. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 32(1), 55-67. doi:10.1016/j.tree.2016.09.012
- Hassell, J. M., Ward, M. J., Muloi, D., Bettridge, J. M., Robinson, T. P., Kariuki, S., . . . Fèvre, E. M. (2019). Clinically relevant antimicrobial resistance at the wildlife–livestock–human interface in Nairobi: an epidemiological study. The Lancet Planetary Health, 3(6), e259-e269. doi:10.1016/S2542-5196(19)30083-X
