New antibiotic-resistant bug discovered in University Hospital Limerick

Researchers have discovered a new antibiotic-resistant species of bacteria in the State’s most overcrowded hospital.

The new bacterial species was found in the wastewater system of University Hospital Limerick, and also identified from swabs taken from a patient admitted to one of the hospital’s wards.

The discovery was made by researchers at the University of Limerick school of medicine who identified a novel antibiotic-resistant bacterial species that is capable of colonising patients in a hospital setting.

Their study, carried out with scientists from Queen’s University Belfast, involved a large-scale genomic and microbiology analysis of UHL’s wastewater system, correlated with samples taken from patients.

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Laboratory analysis found that the new species is resistant to many commonly used antibiotics, including some that are reserved for resistant bacteria. The patient, who showed no symptoms, did not need treatment with these drugs.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a major challenge that is estimated to be directly responsible for more than one million global deaths annually. AMR makes infections harder to treat and increases the risks associated with other medical procedures and treatments.

One problem associated with AMR is hospital-acquired infection, which occurs when people who are admitted to hospital for treatment become infected by microbes circulating in the hospital wards.

The Limerick group has been working for more than a decade to add to understanding of what these microbes are, where they are and what drugs they are resistant to.

“Unusually, the bacteria could not be identified using diagnostic approaches used routinely in hospital labs,” said Prof Colum Dunne, senior author of the study. “Using data from our large-scale study of the hospital’s wastewater system and by sequencing the genome of the new isolate, we confirmed two things: that the bacteria are present in the hospital system and the patient was colonised with the bacteria after they were admitted to the hospital.

“The bacterial family, called pseudocitrobacter, has only recently been classified and we found that our isolate is a new addition to that family, having not been reported elsewhere and never isolated from a human sample.”

The patients remained colonised only and did not need antimicrobial treatment for this species, he pointed out.

The study was published in Journal of Hospital Infection.

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