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posted by CoolHand on Monday August 24 2015, @01:01AM   Printer-friendly
from the evolution-in-action dept.

Swedish exchange students who studied in India and in central Africa returned from their sojourns with an increased diversity of antibiotic resistance genes in their gut microbiomes. The research is published 10 August in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, a journal of the American Society for Microbiology.

In the study, the investigators found a 2.6-fold increase in genes encoding resistance to sulfonamide, a 7.7-fold increase in trimethoprim resistance genes, and a 2.6-fold increase in resistance to beta-lactams, all of this without any exposure to antibiotics among the 35 exchange students. These resistance genes were not particularly abundant in the students prior to their travels, but the increases are nonetheless quite significant.
...
in fact, the increases the investigators observed in abundance and diversity of resistance genes occurred despite the fact that none of the students took antibiotics either before or during travel. The increase seen in resistance genes could have resulted from ingesting food containing resistant bacteria, or from contaminated water, the investigators write. Providing further support for the hypothesis that resistance genes increased during travel, genes for extended spectrum beta-lactamase, which dismembers penicillin and related antibiotics, was present in just one of the 35 students prior to travel, but in 12 students after they returned to Sweden.


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  • (Score: 2) by isostatic on Monday August 24 2015, @09:20AM

    by isostatic (365) on Monday August 24 2015, @09:20AM (#226942) Journal

    I've been rather docile for the last two months as I was working on a large project in Singapore for a month, then only visited Sydney, Melbourne and Acukland since.

    However a typical month will see me visiting 2 or 3 continents. Picking up something in Singapore and I can spread in London and Manchester the next day, Rome the next week, Washington the week after, then Cairo a couple of weeks after that. That ignores the contact I have with other semi-frequent travellers in airport lounges.

    The Ryan Binghams of the world will be able to spread a single virus to thousands of people in a 72 hour incubation period.

    If you're doing slow-moving bus/coach/hitchhiking it doesn't spread anywhere near as fast, and pandemics can be controlled somewhat. With todays high speed long distance travel -- hourly flights from London to New York for instance, you have a right pain trying to stop a proper pandemic, even if you manage to "shut down the trade network".

    Pitcairn would be fine. St Helena for now, Tristan de Cuhna, and a few other isolated places.

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