Estimating community carriage of CPE in Manchester v1.
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Estimating community carriage of Carbapenemase Producing Enterobacteriaceae in Manchester.
IRAS ID
192150
Contact name
Gabrielle Levi
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 5 months, 28 days
Research summary
Carbapenems are an important group of antibiotics used to treat infections in hospitalised patients. Carbapenemase producing enterobacteriaceae (CPE) are gut bacteria which produce enzymes (carbapenemases) that destroy carbapenem antibiotics, and so the bacteria are resistant to those antibiotics. Patients can be colonised with CPE- they carry the resistant bacteria in their gut and many have no ill effects. If the CPE enters another part of the body, infection may result. Infections due to CPE are difficult to treat and blood stream infections with CPE have a high mortality rate.
Spread of CPE is a major public health issue in UK, and especially in Manchester, where 2 hospital trusts are significantly affected with resultant disruption to services. Currently most of the transmission appears to be in hospitals and therefore control measures have largely focused on hospitals.
Gut carriage of CPE may be prolonged, some patients still have CPE in their stool 12 months later. Ongoing spread in hospital and a prolonged carrier state has caused a growing pool of known CPE carriers in the community following discharge from hospital.
However, we have little other information on what proportion of adults in the community carry CPE.Understanding community prevalence is an important first step in guiding community control measures and in fine-tuning control measures in hospital (especially around assessing the risk that any new admission will have CPE and thus potentially may transmit it).
This is a pilot study prior to a larger study to estimate community prevalence, determine community risk factors and potential sites of intervention such as care homes.This will be an unlinked anonymous carriage study using routine adult faecal samples submitted for other reasons by GPs to the Microbiology laboratory for culture and sensitivity.
Funding from Public Health England.
REC name
South Central - Berkshire Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
15/SC/0773
Date of REC Opinion
23 Dec 2015
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion