Alumni Day talk online: Fighting the Next Pandemic: Water quality, antimicrobial resistance and global health

David Graham recently provided the 2020 Newcastle University Alumni Day lecture and it is now available online (in case you missed it). The talk called “Fighting the Next Pandemic: Water quality, antimicrobial resistance and global health” is available here or see it below. It addresses links between water quality and the spread of resistant infectious disease – which could potentially lead to the next pandemic. Parallels and lessons between antibiotic resistance and Covid-19 are discussed.

Environmental factors in the spread of drug resistance

Today David Graham and Peter Collignon released an Insights piece called Scientists around the world are already fighting the next pandemic in The Conversation. A shorter version entitled Access to clean water may be as vital as cutting antibiotic use in the fight against superbugs also was published in The Telegraph. Both articles discuss the importance of environmental factors in the spread of antibiotic resistance, especially in the developing world.

These articles comment on the just-published Technical Brief on antimicrobial resistance from the World Health Organization; Food and Agriculture Organization; and World Organization for Animal Health. The brief provides recommendations on the implementation of water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH), and wastewater management as strategy for preventing infections and reduce the spread of antimicrobial resistance around the world. David was a contributing author on the Brief.