£5 million given to AMR research partnerships between UK and Argentina

The UK Government has provided £5 million of aid as part of a programme to manage antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in agriculture and its impact on the environment.

The funding will go to five research partnerships between the UK and Argentina. It has been awarded through the Global AMR Innovation Fund (GAMRIF) and will be matched in staff and lab resources by the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET) in Argentina.

The partnerships receiving the award are: 

• William Gaze (University of Exeter) and Alejandro Petroni (Administración Nacional de Laboratorios e Institutos de Salud ‘Dr Carlos G Malbrán’) to develop a conceptual framework to improve understanding of AMR in livestock systems for translation into policy and practice. 
• Helen West (University of Nottingham) and Sonia Gómez (Administración Nacional de Laboratorios e Institutos de Salud ‘Dr Carlos G Malbrán’) to develop best practice for waste management in commercial chicken farms in Argentina to manage AMR. 
• Dominic Moran (University of Edinburgh) and Mariano Fernandez Miykawa (Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria) to understand and quantify the environmental and economic impacts of antimicrobial use in chicken supply chains and design interventions that are cost-effective for producers. 
• Peers Davies (University of Liverpool) and Sergio Sanchez-Bruni (Centro de Investigación Veterinaria de Tandil) to develop an antimicrobial surveillance framework for the Argentinian beef industry to understand how antimicrobial usage and farming practices impact the environment. 
• Kirsten Reyher (University of Bristol) and Rodolfo Luzbel de la Sota (Universidad Nacional de La Plata) to investigate the prevalence and causes of AMR in Argentinian farming systems and the impact on the near-farm environment.

The research will benefit low- and middle-income countries which are disproportionately impacted by AMR. The programme will be delivered on behalf of GAMRIF by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) in the UK and by CONICET in Argentina.

The use of antimicrobial drugs in livestock production is a primary contributor to the development and spread of AMR. Drug-resistant microbes can be transmitted from animals to humans via direct contact or through the food chain and the environment, which poses a potential significant threat to human health.

Source: UK Government, 2 October 2019