Across England, the number of bloodstream infections caused by a group of bacteria which include ‘Esherichia coli’ (E. coli) and ‘Klebsiella pneuomoniae’ (K. pneumoniae) has been rising significantly for the last few years.
A recent investigation by our group using the IORD database has in addition revealed that antibiotic resistance in these infections is also increasing. The reasons for this are not currently clear and we would therefore like to conduct a study to try to understand some of the detailed genetic factors which may be driving this. We have performed DNA sequencing of the bacteria causing these type of bloodstream infections in Oxfordshire for the past ten years. With the extra information provided by IORD we hope to investigate whether specific genetic patterns of antibiotic resistance are more associated with hospitals or even specific departments of hospitals or whether they are found more commonly in certain areas of the community. We will also examine whether patients who have more than one bloodstream infection are consistently infected with the same bacteria or carry the same antibiotic resistance genes, which may in future affect the choice of antibiotics for these patients should they become ill.