Wildlife, Agricultural soils, Water environments and antimicrobial resistance - what is known, needed and feasible for global Environmental Surveillance
Environment
Surveillance
- Stefan Börjesson, National Veterinary Insitute (SVA), Sweden (Coordinator)
- Li Xue-Wen, Shandong University, China (Observer)
- Bing Li, Tsinghua University, China (Observer)
- Monika Dolejska, University of Veterinary and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Czech Republic (Observer)
- Christophe Dagot, Université de Limoges, France (Observer)
- Sebastian Guenther, University of Greifswald, Germany (Observer)
- Laura Villa, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Italy (Observer)
- Kees Veldman, Wageningen University & Research, Netherlands (Observer)
- Heike Schmitt, National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), Netherlands (Observer)
- Marianne Sunde, The Norwegian Veterinary Institute, Norway (Observer)
- Pawel Krzeminski, Norwegian Institute for Water Research (NIVA), Norway (Observer)
- Jean-Yves Madec, ANSES, French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety, France (Observer)
- Dariusz Wasyl, National Veterinary Research Institute, Poland (Observer)
- Magdalena Popowska, University of Warsaw, Poland (Observer)
- Josef Järhult, Uppsala University, Sweden (Observer)
- Stefan Örn, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), Sweden (Observer)
- Olfa Mahjoub, National Research Institute for Rural Engineering, Water, and Forestry (INRGREF), Tunisia (Observer)
- Wejdene Mansour, Institut Supérieur des Sciences Appliquées et de Technologie de Mahdia, Tunisia (Observer)
- Dinh Hho Thai, VNU University of Science, Vietnam (Observer)
- Eliana Guedes Stehling, University of São Paulo, Brazil (Observer)
- Fiona Walsh, Maynooth University, Ireland (Observer)
- Thomas U Berendonk, Technische Universität Dresden, Germany (Observer)
- Muna Anjum, Animal and Plant Health Agency, United Kingdom (Observer)
- Erica Donner, University of South Australia, Australia (Observer)
- Patrick Boerlin, University of Guelph, Canada (Observer)
- Edward Topp, University of Western Ontario, Canada (Observer)
- Clair Jardine, Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperative Ontario/Nunavut, Canada (Observer)
Antibiotic resistant bacteria (ARB) are one of the greatest challenges for both animal and human healthcare, this because the availability of antibiotics is the foundation for all modern medicine. To battle ARB surveillance plays an essential role to identify emergences of new or rare ARB, the continued transmission of more well-known ARB, and to assess if strategies and policies implemented to mitigate the spread has had an effect. In the endorsed action plans on antimicrobial resistance from The World Health Assembly (WHO), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and The World organization for Animal health (OIE) all agrees upon that surveillance should be performed in a one-health approach involving all sectors. Despite this, current national and international programs focus largely on the human and livestock sectors, in a limited number of countries companion animals is also included, but with the environment and wildlife generally overlooked. Furthermore, there is unquestionably a lack of standardization and synergy between projects and research efforts focusing on ABR in the environment and wildlife. To amend this, we have initiated the WAWES network – “Wildlife, Agricultural soils, Water environments and antimicrobial resistance - what is known, needed and feasible for global Environmental Surveillance”, which consists of 27 partners from 16 countries from all over the globe representing low to high income settings. The WAWES participants have a shared objective of finding a way to perform global comparative surveillance of AMR in the environment and wildlife, which is furthermore applicable in most countries irrespective of economic resources. The work to focus on suggesting approaches to perform surveillance on ABR in the environment and wildlife is challenging mainly due to the complexity of the environment both on a macroscopic and microscopic scale, and the complexity of wildlife. In fact, one of the large hurdles, and the major ongoing discussion point of Wawes, is exactly defining what should be included in the definition of environment. Another major obstacle of suggesting approaches for surveillance on the environment and wildlife is that it preferably would be comparable to ongoing surveillance efforts in humans and livestock. However, the methods and chosen indicators for humans and livestock might not be suitable as indicators in the environment. After initial discussions it was decided within Wawes to focus the efforts. First a white paper focusing on the suitability of using Escherichia coli, which is the major indicator bacteria for surveillance ARB efforts in human and livestock, as an indicator bacterium also in the environment. This work will define both the advantageous and primarily the weaknesses of using E. coli. In addition, the paper will also try to define the environment in the perspective of performing ABR surveillance. The second effort will be on an overview of ABR in wildlife with focus on other wildlife than birds since there already exist extensive studies and comprehensive reviews about ABR in wild birds. This work would also include on how wildlife should be defined in the perspective of performing ABR surveillance and highlight why wildlife is relevant when performing ABR surveillance.
- Current Opinion in Microbiology, 2021. The potential of using E. coli as an indicator for the surveillance of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in the environment
- Book Chapter Antibiotics and Antimicrobial Resistance Genes (Springer International Publishing)’ eBook ISBN 978-3-030-40422-2, Hardcover ISBN 978-3-030-40421-5, 2020. Chapter 1 –* ‘Entry routes of antibiotics and antimicrobial resistance in the environment' P17, P19 Chapter 6 –‘Antimicrobial/antibiotic resistance genes due to manure and agricultural waste applications’ P19
- Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, 2019. Wildlife Is Overlooked in the Epidemiology of Medically Important Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria
