CDC Invests in Innovative Solutions
Alongside academic investigators, CDC is looking for new ways to identify and evaluate strategies to combat antibiotic resistance. Antibiotic resistant infections can be deadly for humans and is a growing global threat jeopardizing modern medicine and the healthcare, veterinary, and agriculture industries. CDC is collaborating with multiple researchers to understand antibiotic resistance in healthcare facilities and outside healthcare facilities (including nearby surface water and soil), as well as the human microbiome, to determine the potential impact on human health.
Additionally, the CDC and FDA Antibiotic Resistance Isolate Bank supports innovation in diagnostics and drug development. A collection of organisms uncovered during outbreak and surveillance activities, the AR Isolate Bank provides the latest and highest quality samples of resistant organisms to microbiologists, lab directors, drug and diagnostic manufacturers, and academic researchers. These organisms can be used to meet lab testing needs; fulfill FDA approval requirements; and detect new, unusual, and timely public health resistance threats.
This work complements broader CDC efforts to support known strategies for protecting people and slowing antibiotic resistance, collectively known as CDC’s Antibiotic Resistance Solutions Initiative.
Healthcare Settings
CDC is investing in projects to discover and evaluate new strategies to protect patients from antibiotic resistance in healthcare settings.
People receiving medical care can get serious infections called healthcare-associated infections (HAIs), which may lead to sepsis or death. HAIs can be caused by bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics, making them difficult or, in some cases, impossible to treat, and the germs causing these deadly infections can spread. CDC works with networks of trusted partners to discover, implement, and evaluate innovative prevention strategies to improve healthcare quality and patient safety.
In collaboration with investigators, CDC aims to determine:
- How Antibiotic Stewardship Programs Can Protect Patients. CDC and investigators will assess how programs focused on improving antibiotic use will improve patient safety.
- How Enhancing Infection Control Actions can Prevent Spread of Infections. CDC and investigators will evaluate new strategies to limit the spread of infections through enhanced cleaning methods or use of specific disinfectants. This work guides CDC’s infection control and prevention and guidelines for U.S. healthcare facilities. Other CDC mechanisms and programs focused on innovation in healthcare settings include SHEPheRD, MInD – Healthcare, and Prevention Epicenters.
- How to Obtain Better-Quality Data for Action. CDC and investigators will gather more and stronger infection data from healthcare facilities to better measure the challenges influencing healthcare quality and patient safety, and implement solutions.
Human Microbiome
CDC is investing in projects to expand our understanding of the gut-drug relationship.
Antibiotics can disrupt (unbalance) your microbiome, a community of naturally-occurring germs in and on our bodies, the way a wildfire can destroy a forest. Antibiotics impact the microbiome by wiping out the natural composition of both good and bad bacteria. With a disrupted microbiome, resistant bacteria can take over and the body is less able to defend against infection, putting people at risk for potentially untreatable illnesses. These patients can carry drug-resistant bacteria and can easily spread bacteria to other people, especially those who also have a disrupted microbiome. CDC is conducting applied research on the microbiome to identify effective public health approaches that protect people, their microbiomes, and the effectiveness of antibiotics.
In collaboration with investigators, CDC aims to determine:
- How Antibiotics Disrupt a Healthy Microbiome. CDC and investigators will study novel strategies that can protect and restore the microbiome, and determine how exposure to antibiotics early in life affects microbiome development.
- How a Disrupted Microbiome Puts People at Risk. CDC and investigators will develop a predictive index that identifies a patient’s risk of disruption from a specific antibiotic, a patient’s likelihood of becoming a carrier of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and their risk of becoming infected with one. CDC and investigators will also work to develop and test microbiome measurements that monitor a patient’s risk for transmitting antibiotic-resistant bacteria and assess enhanced infection control triggers.
- How Improving Antibiotic Use Can Protect the Microbiome. CDC and investigators will improve strategies to tailor antibiotic stewardship to a patient’s individual microbiome, as well as assess how to fit antibiotic stewardship to a specific population of patients (e.g., hospital unit, nursing home, doctor’s office).
Healthcare, Agriculture, and the Environment (i.e., surface water and soil)
CDC is investing in projects to fill knowledge gaps about antibiotic resistance and potential impact on human health.CDC recognizes the One Health concept that the health of people is connected to the health of animals and the environment (e.g., surface water and soil), which includes resistant bacteria. It is not well understood if humans can get sick due to antibiotic resistant germs in water or soil. However, bodies of water can act as reservoirs, a place where germs grow and multiply without hindrance, including resistant bacteria. A body of water contaminated with resistance elements can contribute to antibiotic resistance CDC will explore how these resistance elements may contaminate and contribute to further resistance, and its impact on human health.
In collaboration with investigators, CDC aims to determine:
- How Antibiotic Use Can Impact Aquatic Ecosystems and Human Health. CDC and investigators will detect and determine the amount of antibiotic resistant determinants (elements like a gene that can share resistance) in aquatic ecosystems where wastewater is discharged or runoff can leach into the soil and water. CDC and investigators will also look at how this can affect human health.
- Data to Understand the Risk to Human Health. CDC and investigators will work towards identifying antibiotic residue and resistance elements in aquatic ecosystems near healthcare and agriculture settings, and quantifying concentrations at which resistance might emerge. This work could be used to understand the risk posed to humans.
List of Projects
Innovations to Slow Antibiotic Resistance
Microbiome Infographic Details
Antibiotic Resistance (AR) Solutions Initiative: Microbiome
CDC’s applied research on the human microbiome aims to identify effective public health approaches to protect people, their microbiomes, and the effectiveness of antibiotics. Bacteria, fungi, viruses, and other microbes (germs) live naturally on our skin and in our gut and other places within our body. These microbes make up a community called the microbiome. Antibiotics can destroy your microbiome the way a wildfire can destroy a forest.
- A healthy microbiome helps protect you from infection because your body needs bacteria to function normally.
- When you take antibiotics to treat an infection, the antibiotics not only kill the infection-causing bacteria, but the bacteria that keep you healthy can also be destroyed for several months. This can disrupt, or unbalance, a healthy microbiome.
- With a disrupted microbiome, the body is less able to defend against infection, putting people at risk for infections from deadly germs like difficile and MRSA.
- When drug-resistant bacteria take over, patients can carry these germs and spread them to other people, especially if those people have a disrupted microbiome.
When antibiotics are needed, the benefits outweigh the risks of side effects or antibiotic resistance. When antibiotics aren’t needed, those risks come with no benefits. By only using antibiotics when needed, we can avoid unnecessary microbiome disruption and risk for getting or spreading infections.
.png)
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario