May 19, 2015
Prof. Chris Parry et al. Report Study on Worldwide Analysis of Drug-resistant Typhoid in Nature Genetics
Prof. Chris Parry, School of Tropical Medicine and Global Health, et al. reports a study on worldwide analysis of drug-resistant typhoid in Nature Genetics.
“Typhoid, caused by the highly contagious bacterium Salmonella typhi, is spread from person to person by food and water that is contaminated with traces of infected faeces or urine. It commonly affects people who live in low-income countries, where there is inadequate sanitation and a lack of clean water, and occasionally affects returning travellers. The disease can be treated with antibiotics but resistance to commonly used antibiotics has been a problem that has come and gone since the 1970s.
This study of global typhoid strains shows that the new multiple-antibiotic resistant H58 strain has spread from the Indian sub-continent to countries in south-east Asia, the Pacific and most recently to Africa and is displacing other antibiotic sensitive strains. The antibiotic resistance genes have become a stable part of the bacterial genome in this strain and as a result the choice of antibiotic available to treat infections has become very limited giving the disease an opportunity to become more severe.
The study, one of the largest bacterial genome sample collections published, shows the critical importance of multi- national collaborations to track typhoid around the world, the need for better control of antimicrobial use in low-income countries and for new antibiotics to treat such resistant strains.”
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