Grant: Canada-UK Partnership on Antibiotic Resistance - LOI

Antimicrobial resistant bacteria are spreading to all corners of the world. There are lots of different reasons why this is happening (such as the overuse of antibiotics etc). However, we believe that other factors are also playing an important role and even letting this spread happen at very fast rate. International travel to certain high risk areas of the world such as India had previosuly been implicated in the spread of certain types of bacteria; we would like to invetigate if this is indeed true for a new type of resistance called carbapenemase-producing bacteria. Carbapenemaase-producing bacteria are very important because there are so few antibiotics left to treat infections due these bacteria. We aim to culture the rectums of travellers to India before they leave and then culture them again when they get back to find out if they have acquired such a carbapenemase-producing bacteria. We also will follow them up for a 6 month period to find out if they actually get infected with these bacteria. We want also determine if there are certain high risk behaviours that will make it more likely to become positive for these resistant bacteria. This way we can warn travellers to India to avoid this risky behaviours.