Under European Union regulations, recreational waters, including coastal waters are monitored routinely for indicators of faecal contamination, i.e. Escherichia coli and intestinal Enterococci. However not all E. coli are the same. Some E. coli may be resistant to antibiotics. Antibiotic resistance is a serious public health concern and we may be entering an era where there are no useful antibiotics left to treat infection. It is now commonplace for antibiotics, which could be relied upon 20 years ago, to fail. The Antimicrobial Resistance and Microbial Ecology (ARME) group, NUI Galway are applying a “One Health” approach to antibiotic resistance surveillance. The ARME group were the first to report findings of highly antibiotic resistant organisms called carbapenemase producing Enterobacteriaceae (CPE) in seawaters in Europe in 2016 (http://dx.doi.org/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2017.22.15.30513). Seawaters may potentially represent an important route of transmission of antimicrobial resistant Enterobacteriaceae (AMR-E). The ARME group are collaborating with several universities (both nationally and internationally) and governmental agencies to examine various niches (humans, the environment, the agri-food chain) for the presence of AMR-E. This research project will examine seawaters collected from two beaches for AMR-E, characterise isolates collected from these waters and compare these to human isolates of AMR-E. Where isolates of similar characteristics are identified, molecular biology approaches will be applied to determine relatedness.
