Antibiotics beyond humans: Ecologies, production, flows

Steve Hinchliffe presented at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine’s Antimicrobials in Society online Panel Series in November.

Along with the other panellists, Steve discussed how we might consider antibiotic use beyond humans and the complexities of farming in different and difficult settings. Drawing on their collective research expertise, conducted in Bangladesh, India, West Africa, Georgia and the UK, the Panel reflected upon food production and the microbiopolitics of therapy, including the potential ‘techno scientific salvation’ offered by phage.

Find out more and view the full presentation

Katie Adams presented at the 6th World One Health Congress

As we reported previously, DIAL team member, Katie Adam presented at the 6th One World Health Congress earlier in November.

You can now listen to the entire presentation and view the slides.

To play the presentation, click on the drop down arrow on the top right hand corner and selection ‘Play from Beginning’

“Excellent talk with very interesting findings......informative comments on the fragmented market of AMR diagnostics ”

— Congress Participants

Poster Presentation at International Workshop

Ray Chan recently presented a poster at the Newton Fund Collaboration Workshop entitled 'The Challenge of AMR Workshop: 19-22 October 2020'.

There were 36 participants (15 from the UK, 16 from China and 5 non-china or UK participants) at the workshop which aimed to build capacity for interdisciplinary AMR research among science and social-science research fields. 

Ray Chan’s poster at the Newton Fund Collaboration Workshop, held in October 2020

Claire Scott joins the DIAL team

Starting in September 2020, Claire Scott will be joining the DIAL team as PhD student funded by the Medical Research Foundation under the National PhD Training Programme in Antimicrobial Resistance Research and by the Langford Trust.

Trained as a clinical veterinary surgeon, Claire’s doctoral research – which will be jointly supervised by Kristen Reyher (Bristol) and Henry Buller (Exeter) - will be looking at the particular issues of disease management and antimicrobial resistance on smallholder and ‘hobby’ farms’

Katie Adams to present at the 6th World One Health Congress

Katie will give a presentation on Rapid Diagnostic Development to Combat Antimicrobial Resistance in Livestock at the World One Health Congress on Monday 2nd November at 10am.

Background

Rapid diagnostic tests have been suggested as a critical component of efforts to rationalise and reduce antimicrobial use in humans and animals without compromising health and wellbeing. Successful development and application of novel diagnostic tools requires both scientific innovation and understanding of relevant social, political and economic factors, including regulation. This qualitative study has identified barriers and enablers to diagnostic innovation to combat antimicrobial resistance in livestock, assessed the regulatory landscape and explored potential markets for rapid diagnostics in farmed animals.

Methods:

19 semi-structured interviews were conducted with diagnostic developers and other relevant organisations within the UK. Data were analysed using the Strategic Analysis of Advanced Technology Innovation Systems (STRATIS) framework. A qualitative model of the innovation system was created with Banxia Decision Explorer™ software.

Results

A range of novel, rapid diagnostic technologies are being developed, primarily within universities and small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The anticipated value chain involves linking these organisations with multinational animal health companies, which appears to be a major challenge in commercialising rapid diagnostic tests to support responsible antimicrobial use in farm animals. Minimal regulation around rapid diagnostic tests for use in animals supports innovation due to low regulatory barriers to market entry, particularly in comparison to rapid diagnostics for human use. Increasing regulation around antimicrobial use in livestock is an important driver of diagnostic innovation in this area. However, the lack of a clear framework for test validation, difficulties in identifying an appropriate diagnostic target, and uncertainty around the market for diagnostic tests to support responsible antimicrobial use in animals are barriers to investment.

Conclusions

Few rapid diagnostic tests to support antimicrobial use decisions in livestock are available at present due to a lack of clarity in the pathway to market.

Social media Rapid diagnostic tests are being developed to support responsible antibiotic use in farm animals, but a lack of a clear market is a major barrier to commercialisation.

Find out more about how to register and hear Katie’s presentation at the virtual Congress

Team Member joins Interdisciplinary Approach Workshop

Ray Chan is one of 30 future research leaders who has been recruited to attend a series of GW4 workshops looking at interdisciplinary approaches to AMR.

Together they will consider:

1. knowledge of AMR;

2. skill to develop interdisciplinary collaborations;

3. technique to write a successful grant proposal writing, and;

4. the expertise to engage with AMR related stakeholder

Further details of the workshop and all the researcher are available on the GW4 website

DIAL work presented at the 4S/EASST on-line conference in August 2020

In August 2020, Ray Chan and Henry Buller presented their paper on ‘Diagnostic practices and Drivers of the Use of Rapid Diagnostics to Reduce Antimicrobial Use in Animal Farming in the UK’ Chan, K. W. and Buller. H. et al.  (2020) at the Annual Meeting of the Society for the Social Studies of Science, which was held online instead of, as originally intended, in Prague due to the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

This paper explores the current role and place of diagnostic tests in the treatment of farm animal disease. With the growing focus on reduced reliance on antibiotic medicines in both animal and human patient care, attention is increasingly being focused on the practice, the technology and the function of diagnostic tests and how these can support responsible antimicrobial use. Emerging diagnostic technologies offer the possibility of more rapid testing for bacterial disease, while food chain actors and others are increasingly seeking to make diagnostic tests mandatory before the use of critically important antibiotics. This paper reports the findings of a recent large-scale on-line survey of UK farm animal veterinary surgeons (N=135) which investigated current veterinary diagnostic practice with particular attention to the relationship between diagnostic test use and antibiotic treatment. Results revealed a range of factors that influence veterinary diagnostic practice and demonstrate the continuing importance of clinical observation and animal/herd knowledge in the selection of antibiotic treatment.  The findings identify a considerable ambivalence on the part of farm animal veterinarians regarding the current and future uses of rapid and point-of-care diagnostic tests as a means of improving clinical diagnosis and addressing inappropriate antibiotic medicine use.

Also, at the same online 4S/EASST conference, Henry Buller presented a second paper, drawing upon the DIAL and other AMR research, entitled ‘Structures, Practices, Understandings: Confronting agricultural Antimicrobial use practices in three settings’

Abstract 

Drawing on a number of different research projects currently being undertaken or recently completed, this paper confronts and contrasts antimicrobial use practices in livestock systems across three very different national and sub-national situations. While the rhetoric of a global AMR crisis is assembled and enacted at the international level, local farming systems in all three countries display levels of contextual variation that undermine the coherence of those emergent discourses that evoke a singular and unified ‘health’ and the possibility of access to it. National AMR strategies might embrace broad and largely generic reduction targets for antimicrobial use, and some may reach these through the harvesting of low, yet fulsome fruit. But beyond these easier, and often broadly comparable, targets, the significance of embedded practices and technologies, institutional and professional structures and collective understandings becomes a lot more telling. This paper looks at how transnational lines of force and influence (whether in the form of globally trading food companies, international agreements or cooperative research programmes) map across localised domestic economies and the often highly variable social meanings and practices associated with animal health.

UK Parliament AMR Reception 25th February 2020

The DIAL project was represented by Henry Buller (Exeter) at the UK Parliament AMR Reception at Portcullis House, London, organised as a ‘drop-in’ event for MPs, members of the House of Lords and other interested parties, by the Veterinary Vaccinology Network on the 25th February 2020.

Colston Research Society Symposium on Antimicrobial Resistance

In November 2019, a number of members of the DIAL team participated in the Colson Research Society symposium, run by The University of Bristol, on antimicrobial resistance entitled: ‘The Antibiotic Age: The End or a New Beginning’. Steve Hinchliffe (DIAL Co-I at Exeter) presented a paper entitled ‘Global health and the value of economic and cultural difference in tackling AMR’ and Kristen Reyher (DIAL Co-I at Bristol) one entitled: ‘‘Antibiotics Anonymous - Antimicrobial stewardship and voluntary reduction across the UK livestock sectors'.  Details of the event can be found here

Diagnostic Developers Workshop, London

On the 30th October 2019, led by Katie Adam and Ann Bruce (DIAL team, Innogen, University of Edinburgh), the DIAL team ran a workshop for Diagnostic Developers in central London. The workshop combined a series of presentations, including an opening presentation by Penny Wilson of Innovate UK and a closing presentation by Joyce Tait of the University of Edinburgh,  with round-table discussion and the creative use of Ketso kits to explore pathways to the commercial development of rapid and point-of-care diagnostic tests as a means of promoting sustainable antibiotic use in livestock farming.

completed Ketso kit from the event