Across the water: The spread of antimicrobial resistance Artwork

Rise of the Superbugs

We are headed towards a post-antibiotic era, a world where common infections could become life-threatening. That's the message from The World Health Organisation, but are we listening?Rise of the Superbugs is a six-part series about antimicrobial resistance or "superbugs, telling the scary (but solvable) story of superbugs.The series explores our medical systems, through personal stories, waterways and acts of (human) resistance. We’ll talk to experts as we dig into our medicine cabinets, hospitals and backyards, the known past and predicted futures.Rise of the Superbugs reveals where the media has gone wrong in telling the superbug story and why we need to retell it.Host: Dr Britta Jorgensen. Producers: Sarah Mashman and Silvi Vann-Wall. Executive Producer: Professor Mia Lindgren.

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Rise of the Superbugs

Across the water: The spread of antimicrobial resistance

November 23, 2021 • Rise of the Superbugs • Season 1 • Episode 2

Superbugs develop their resistance to antibiotics by mixing and mingling with each other. Many superbugs travel on and in our bodies as we go back and forth overseas. But that isn’t the only way they move. In this episode we find out how superbugs spread in surprising ways and are found in the most remote locations. We find out why some countries are hotspots for resistance and what happens if you become infected with a superbug while travelling.

Have a look at ResistanceMap, where you can see interactive world maps of antibiotic resistance by pathogen and antibiotic use by type in every country.

Here is a link to Dr Isabel Frost’s study:

Isabel Frost, DPhil, Thomas P Van Boeckel, PhD, João Pires, PhD, Jessica Craig, BA, BS, Ramanan Laxminarayan, PhD, Global geographic trends in antimicrobial resistance: the role of international travel, Journal of Travel Medicine, Volume 26, Issue 8, 2019, taz036, https://doi.org/10.1093/jtm/taz036

This article from 2019 in the New York Times about superbugs in India’s River Ganges, using powerful photography to capture this issue.

Read about the Beach Bums Survey on antibiotic resistant E. coli in the guts of surfers versus non-surfers here.

Find out why antibiotic resistance is a particularly big challenge in remote Indigenous communities in this article in The Conversation.

Interviewees in this episode:

Surfer Ian Cohen, who is also a climate change activist and speaker on environmental issues.

Dr Isabel Frost, who was working in India for the Centre for Disease Dynamics and Policy, and is now working as a consultant for the World Health Organisation. She’s also part of the Antimicrobial Resistance Fighter Coalition.

AMR activist David Mateo Ricci, who also wrote this piece about his experience contracting a resistant infection in India.

Chennai-based infectious diseases specialist Dr Abdul Ghafur, coordinator of the Chennai Declaration on antimicrobial resistance in developing countries.

Gomis Rugamba, a documentary photographer and visual artist born in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, grew up in Rwanda and now living in Australia.

Host and producer: Dr Britta Jorgensen.

Producers: Sarah Mashman and Silvi Vann-Wall.

Executive Producer: Professor Mia Lindgren.