How important are hospital reservoirs?: Investigating the transmission dynamics of E. coli and K. pneumoniae in a neonatal ward in Tanzania
Supervisor: Dr Taya Forde, School of Biodiversity, One Health & Veterinary Medicine
Rotation project:
Multi-drug resistant bacteria present a growing, global crisis that threatens our healthcare systems. ESBL- producing Enterobacteriaceae are a class of resistant bacteria that have been designated critical on the WHO’s list of priority pathogens. Amongst these pathogens are ESBL-producing E. coli and K. pneumoniae, both of which create a substantial healthcare burden. These resistant pathogens pose a major burden within hospital settings requiring treatment with expensive and last resort antibiotics. The situation is especially acute in lower- and middle-income countries where the burden of infection is high and resources to tackle antimicrobial resistance are limited. The most effective interventions depend on understanding the within-hospital transmission dynamics – in particular the role of hospital reservoirs – which are expected to differ between E. coli and K. pneumoniae. As a critical step towards elucidating these dynamics, this project will make use of extensive whole genome sequence data collected from patients in a hospital setting in Tanzania to identify the dominant sequence types and compare the spatio-temporal patterns among these different strains. These data will help determine the importance of patient to patient spread versus acquisition from the hospital reservoir. This project will provide the student with a background in antimicrobial resistance and molecular epidemiology, as well as an introduction to epidemiological modelling.