The war against antibiotic resistance is now gaining momentum, as a consortium of 14 European institutes celebrates its first year of molecular scrutiny of the pathogens posing imminent health threats. The aim of the three-year project is to exploit basic biological information to design novel, targeted strategies to control the emergence and spread of high-risk antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
The TROCAR (Translational Research On Combating Antimicrobial Resistance) consortium was launched in Barcelona in February 2009 with funding from the European Commission Seventh Framework Programme under the patronage of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID).
“With expertise ranging from medical microbiology to computational analysis, this network of excellence is on track to identify and target the resistant and multi-resistant bacterial strains that pose the greatest health challenges in Europe,” said Giuseppe Cornaglia, past president of ESCMID and professor at Verona University. “The results of this project could provide the scientific foundation for an early warning system such that new high-risk strains can be detected as soon as they begin to circulate in healthcare or community settings.”
Antibiotic resistance is acknowledged to be one of the most serious public health threats facing Europe. Infections caused by resistant bacteria place severe social and financial burdens on European countries by causing serious, potentially untreatable illness and by complicating and lengthening hospital care for patients undergoing routine procedures. The spread of infections due to resistant bacteria from hospitals into the general population is an additional source of concern.
Efforts in recent years to stem the tide of “superbug” infections have focused on changing behavior, such as reducing unnecessary antibiotic prescribing and increasing healthcare infection-control measures. Such approaches have resulted in some reassuring news: better infection-control policies in hospitals have stabilized or decreased rates of infection with the “superbug” methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in some European countries.
