Two Health or Not Two Health? That Is the Question

ABSTRACT How much drug-resistant infections in livestock contribute to disease in humans is controversial. While zoonoses are a prominent cause of emerging infections, and the profligate use of antibiotics as growth promoters is expected to lead to the spread of resistance, this resistance could rem...

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Main Author: William P. Hanage
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: American Society for Microbiology 2019-04-01
Series:mBio
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/mBio.00550-19
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author William P. Hanage
author_facet William P. Hanage
author_sort William P. Hanage
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description ABSTRACT How much drug-resistant infections in livestock contribute to disease in humans is controversial. While zoonoses are a prominent cause of emerging infections, and the profligate use of antibiotics as growth promoters is expected to lead to the spread of resistance, this resistance could remain concentrated in animal pathogens and only rarely spill over into humans. A recent paper compares genomes of Escherichia coli isolates from human bloodstream infections in England, focused on the Cambridge area, with isolates collected from farms and the food chain in the east of the country, seeking evidence of transmission (C. Ludden, K. E. Raven, D. Jamrozy, T. Gouliouris, et al., mBio 10:e02693-18, 2019, https://doi.org/10.1128/mBio.02693-18). While the human and livestock populations were clearly distinct, with very limited evidence for transmission of E. coli or resistance elements to humans, the results also illustrate our limited ability to infer historical transmission events from even the best samples. The implications for the One Health framework, aiming to unify human and veterinary medicine, are discussed.
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spelling doaj.art-391bf7e0a2974848bbb9e95e5395c7342022-12-21T20:39:10ZengAmerican Society for MicrobiologymBio2150-75112019-04-0110210.1128/mBio.00550-19Two Health or Not Two Health? That Is the QuestionWilliam P. Hanage0Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics, Department of Epidemiology, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts, USAABSTRACT How much drug-resistant infections in livestock contribute to disease in humans is controversial. While zoonoses are a prominent cause of emerging infections, and the profligate use of antibiotics as growth promoters is expected to lead to the spread of resistance, this resistance could remain concentrated in animal pathogens and only rarely spill over into humans. A recent paper compares genomes of Escherichia coli isolates from human bloodstream infections in England, focused on the Cambridge area, with isolates collected from farms and the food chain in the east of the country, seeking evidence of transmission (C. Ludden, K. E. Raven, D. Jamrozy, T. Gouliouris, et al., mBio 10:e02693-18, 2019, https://doi.org/10.1128/mBio.02693-18). While the human and livestock populations were clearly distinct, with very limited evidence for transmission of E. coli or resistance elements to humans, the results also illustrate our limited ability to infer historical transmission events from even the best samples. The implications for the One Health framework, aiming to unify human and veterinary medicine, are discussed.https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/mBio.00550-19Escherichia coliantibiotic resistancegenomicsmolecular epidemiologyOne Health
spellingShingle William P. Hanage
Two Health or Not Two Health? That Is the Question
mBio
Escherichia coli
antibiotic resistance
genomics
molecular epidemiology
One Health
title Two Health or Not Two Health? That Is the Question
title_full Two Health or Not Two Health? That Is the Question
title_fullStr Two Health or Not Two Health? That Is the Question
title_full_unstemmed Two Health or Not Two Health? That Is the Question
title_short Two Health or Not Two Health? That Is the Question
title_sort two health or not two health that is the question
topic Escherichia coli
antibiotic resistance
genomics
molecular epidemiology
One Health
url https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/mBio.00550-19
work_keys_str_mv AT williamphanage twohealthornottwohealththatisthequestion