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Research type
Research Study
Full title
Prevalence and persistance of gram negative bacteria resistance mutations in returning travellers – a targered faecal metagenomics study
IRAS ID
189518
Contact name
Michael Brown
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University College London NHST Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 3 days
Research summary
An increasing health issue in the UK is the number of severe infections that are resistant to commonly used antibiotics. Some of these infections are so resistant that it can be a major challenge to find antibiotics which will work in patients who are affected by them.
The way this situation comes about is that bacteria exposed to antibiotics evolve resistance, and often the genetic mutations that confer this resistance are passed around from one type of bacteria to another in the human gastrointestinal (GI) tract. These resistant bacteria in the GI tract then spread to other parts of the body such as the bladder, the kidney and the skin and cause severe infection.
This means that people who get sick with antibiotic-resistant infections may not have picked up the antibiotic resistant bacteria recently, for example in the hospital ward, but rather they may have received antibiotics in the last few months which have caused them to carry their own drug-resistant bacteria in their GI tract.
People who have travelled abroad seem to be at higher risk of having these resistant bacteria than others.
This study will use new laboratory techniques analysing all bacteria in faecal samples, to estimate how much antibiotic resistance is acquired by people travelling abroad, and by having antibiotics during or shortly after travel ; also how long this resistance persists in the GI tract after returning to the UK.REC name
London - Fulham Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
15/LO/1858
Date of REC Opinion
23 Nov 2015
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion