My research project is about bacteria that are unaffected by,
or in other words resistant to, antibiotics.
Antibiotics are important compounds because they are used for the treatment
of diseases caused by bacteria in animals and humans.
Our use of these compounds has unfortunately resulted in bacteria
arming themselves against antibiotics.
Normally infections with bacteria are treated with antibiotics,
causing the bacteria to die. Resistant bacteria make chemicals that can act as
a weapon against antibiotics.
One chemical that these bacteria can make is ESBL.
ESBL breaks apart the structure of the antibiotic so that the bacteria survives.
A person remains sick for longer and costs for treatment could increase.
In addition to humans, chickens can carry bacteria that make ESBL.
Concern exists that resistant bacteria could be transmitted between chickens and humans.
The ways in which this might occur is via the food chain,
via direct contact with live chickens, or via the environment.
It is important to study these routes of transmission so that we can prevent
transmission in the future.
In our first two studies we looked at transmission via the environment and at
transmission via direct contact with live chickens.
In our first study we looked at people living in areas with many or with few chickens.
We expected that people living in areas with many chickens would more often be
carriers of resistant bacteria,
than people living in areas with few chickens, because in general these people
live closer to chicken farms.
However, this was not the case in our study.
In our second study we looked at people who live and work on a farm with chickens.
We found that these people are more often carriers of bacteria that make ESBL,
than people who do not live and work on a chicken farm. We do not know yet if this
is due to contact with live chickens,
further research is necessary. With these, and future results,
we hope to better arm ourselves against resistant bacteria.