Dispersal of antibiotic resistance through marine aquaculture in Asia and sub- Saharan Africa

Funded by VR- Swedish Research Links. (1 000 000 SEK) 2018-2020.
PI’s Per Knutsson and Anna Godhe (CARe), Indrani Karunasagar, (Nitte Universitet, India), Ramchandra Bhatta (Indian Council of Agricultural Research), David Mirerera (Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute), Rashmi Narayan (T A Pai Management Institute, Manipal, India).

The use of antibiotics in aquaculture is a hazard associated with the development and spread of antibioticresistance genes (ARG) in marine environments. Bacteria are carriers of ARGs and associated withplanktonic organisms, and studies of plankton and oceanic circulation may provide new insight into thespread of resistance. However, to establish fair and effective governance of antibiotic use, especially indeveloping countries where aquaculture production is an important source of livelihood and revenue, it is alsonecessary to know the driving forces behind the usage. Our aim is to build on existing research collaborationbetween scholars from Sweden, India and Kenya, and to initiate research networks and multistakeholderplatforms, to produce a synthesis for policy recommendations for Asia and East Africa. The synthesis will bebased on empirical results and we will address where and on which level remedies to prevent antibioticresistance spread are most effective. More specifically, we will map the flow of antibiotics from productionto use in order to identify points in the value chain where restrictions would be fair and effective. Further, wewill use metagenomics to identify genetic fingerprints of the ARG pool from four aquaculture sites. Thespread of specific ARG patterns are hypothesised to be linked to the dispersal of phytoplankton and will beprojected by oceanographic connectivity models and verified with repeated sampling at different geographicscales.