New paper published – building bridges to operationalize One Health

CWBE’s researchers, alongside collaborators at the Environment Agency, Wessex Water and University of Bristol, have published a new paper on community-wide antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in the shadow of COVID-19, using wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE).

The study looked at four communities (CWBE’s ‘Living Labs’) with population sizes ranging from 12k to 960k (covering an area of 2000 km²) in the South West of the UK. The biggest city within the area is Bristol followed by the city of Bath with population of ∼ 130k and two small towns Paulton and Radstock with population < 30k. 

The study found that changes in community behaviours associated with COVID-19 interventions have indirectly contributed to the reduction of community-wide AMR. In the prescription-consumption model established via WBE approach, amoxicillin and clarithromycin exhibited great potential as appropriate biomarkers complementary to clinical data for the surveillance of community’s infectious disease, antibiotic stewardship and patient compliance. The unique value of WBE as a tool providing more accurate data on antibiotics usage (a unique spatiotemporal fingerprint) in tested communities has also been proven. This study strongly supported the One Health concept for addressing AMR potentially at regional and national scale. Future research should extend to larger catchment areas to establish more WBE pipelines to inform public health with an ultimate goal to help address AMR.

Read the paper

Written by

helena

May 13, 2025