Standardized One Health surveillance of antibiotic residues and antibiotic- and heavy metal resistance in Baltic water environments and wild birds

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) surveillance and monitoring in the One Health context calls for interdisciplinary and multi-national, standardized approaches at the human-animal-environment interface.

While multiple studies describe the occurrence of AMR bacteria such as multidrug-resistant (MDR) Enterobacterales and Pseudomonas aeruginosa and AMR genes in one of the One Health dimensions including (wild) animals and the environment superficially, fewer efforts exist to holistically investigate the exact roles of wastewater treatment plants/surface water and wild birds as connected reservoirs for their global dissemination and spill-over.

We plan to investigate the occurrence of such bacteria, AMR genes, AMR in water-borne pathogens, and antimicrobial residues in water and wild birds across the Baltic Sea region, for which we have assembled experts from littoral states.

By leveraging bird movement data and combining bacterial cultivation with genomics, qPCR and phenotypic methodologies, we aim at analyzing water and wild bird fecal samples to characterize MDR bacteria in-depth, perform microbiological source tracking, assess the rates and fate of AMR genes and elucidate different factors contributing to the spread of AMR, such as antimicrobial and heavy metal residues, phenotypic resistance and non-resistance features.

In summary, this is a proof-of-concept study of how to set up a standardized and reliable environmental AMR surveillance strategy in the One Health context.