Babies in the first month of life (neonates) are very vulnerable to bacterial infections, which require antibiotics as treatment. Increasingly bacterial infections are harder to treat, a problem known as antibiotic resistance. Some forms of antibiotic resistance occur because bacteria can share genetic information with each other (resistance genes) – this includes a group of genes known as ESBLs (extended-spectrum beta-lactamases).
We want to use nanopore sequencing to study the genetic information of ESBL-associated bacteria causing infection in the OUH neonatal unit to understand how these infections spread. We plan to use IORD data to understand the situations in which ESBL-associated infections occur – including how many babies were admitted to the unit and could have got an infection, and whether ESBL-infected babies were on the unit at the same time in the same place. This will help us work out how these ESBL-associated infections are spreading and what infection prevention/control measures might stop them from happening in the future. It will also help us think about how we might use nanopore sequencing to understand the spread of other hospital-associated infections, and develop workflows that can be used by NHS staff to stop this from happening.