Flies are often carriers of antibiotic-resistant bacteria

Fly as a carrier of antibiotic-resistant germs

The increasing resistance to antibiotics is posing a growing challenge for healthcare. The problem must be brought under control soon, otherwise it could come in the coming decades to millions of deaths, according to experts. Researchers have now found evidence that flies could play an important role in the transmission of antibiotic-resistant germs.

Fight against antibiotic resistance

"It can not leave anyone cold that more and more people around the world are dying of germs that are resistant to antibiotics," explained former Federal Health Minister Hermann Gröhe last year. "We must fight antibiotic resistance resolutely - nationally and internationally." In fact, in recent years, more and more governments and experts have announced that they want to step up the fight against antibiotic resistance. Helps may also provide new insights from researchers, have found indications that flies could also play an important role in the transmission of antibiotic-resistant germs.

Researchers have found evidence that flies may play an important role in transmitting antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The insects pick up antibiotics on slaughterhouse waste and livestock manure. (Image: jarun011 / fotolia.com)

Flies take up antibiotics via excretions of farm animals

Cow dung, pig manure, slaughter waste - which is rather unappetizing for humans, is for some fly in the truest sense of eating a feast, according to a statement of the Medical Faculty of the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität (WWU) Münster.

However, especially in the animal fattening many antibiotics are used, which give rise to resistant germs.

Exactly these take over the excrements of the livestock on the insects. Since flies also have contact with humans, they are such an "ideal" carrier of pathogens.

Scientists from the University of Münster have therefore now, together with an international team, highlighted the importance of the debris fly in spreading antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

In two meetings in Amsterdam and Vienna, they discussed all available research on the topic and published their findings in the journal "Travel Medicine and Infectious Disease"..

Obvious context

Already in 2016, a Münster study showed that up to 20 percent of all flies in the rural region are populated with resistant germs such as Escherichia coli (ESBL-producing E. coli), which can cause severe, difficult-to-treat infections in humans.

"With our work at that time, we were able to prove that the bacteria of the examined flies often bore the same resistance genes as the bacteria in our patients," explains Prof. Frieder Schaumburg from the Institute of Medical Microbiology.

"There was a connection close by - which had not been proven yet."

All available research results collected

In order to pursue the question of the role of "filth flies" - ie flies that use excrements and decaying material for food and egg laying - as a carrier of other antibiotic-resistant germs, microbiologists, infectiologists, veterinarians and entomologists met (Insect experts) to workshops in Amsterdam and Vienna.

The experts - including from Gabon, Canada and Denmark - gathered all available research results and discussed them interdisciplinarily - with a clear result:

"On flies, all antibiotic resistances that are feared today by physicians are to be proven. These include, for example, the methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus - better known as the dreaded "hospital germ" MRSA ", says Workshop Manager Schaumburg.

"In addition, we were able to show that the antibiotic-resistant bacteria of flies, humans and animals are almost identical. Therefore, it is very likely that flies play an important role in distribution. "

The biologist nevertheless warns against premature conclusions: "It still takes a lot of research to find out how much resistant flies actually affect the number of infections in hospitals and doctors' surgeries. However, we will also have to deal with effective, ecologically sound pest control. "(Ad)