The Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership (GARDP) on Thursday announced that it has launched an observational study in India to highlight the status of the management of antibiotic-resistant infections in hospitals.
GARDP is a Swiss not-for-profit organization developing new treatments for drug-resistant infections that pose the greatest threat to health. GARDP was created by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi) in 2016. It was legally founded in 2018 to ensure that everyone who needs antibiotics receives effective and affordable treatment.
According to a press statement, the study is being conducted in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).
During the study, the experts will collect and analyze data on 180 patients being treated for infections caused by carbapenem-resistant organisms across six hospitals in India.
The study is being conducted at Kasturba Medical College in Manipal, Christian Medical College in Vellore, Tata Medical Centre in Kolkata, P.D. Hinduja Hospital & Medical Research Centre in Mumbai, the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) in Chandigarh and Sir Ganga Ram Hospital in New Delhi.
“We are seeing rising rates of resistance to carbapenems – the class of last-line antibiotics most commonly used to treat hospital-associated multidrug-resistant bacterial infections. This study is designed to give us some of the answers we need to provide better treatments for people who develop these deadly antibiotic-resistant infections,” said Francois Franceschi, GARDP’s Project Lead for Serious Bacterial Infections in a statement.
The study, SBI-CREP-01, will look at the epidemiology as well as the treatments administered to both adults and children with severe bacterial infections caused by carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales (CRE) and/or Pseudomonas aeruginosa (CRPA).
According to health experts, infections caused by these bacteria are difficult to treat because they do not respond to commonly used last-line antibiotics. Data will also be collected on the clinical outcomes for patients with confirmed CRE/CRPA infections in the six hospital sites.
It is noteworthy that these infections have been recognized as critical in the Indian Priority Pathogen List, which guides research, discovery and development of new antibiotics in India.
“Treating Pseudomonas infections has become significantly more difficult because of antibiotic resistance. Without enough antibiotics in the pipeline to address this challenge and as access to newer drugs is not available in India, the situation appears grim. More research as well as active involvement of regulators and policymakers is vital. The study will provide crucial information that could ultimately be used to improve treatments and help reduce deaths and illness associated with bacterial infections,” said Dr Soumyadip Chatterjee, principal investigator for the SBI-CREP-01 study at the Department of Infectious Diseases, Tata Medical Centre, Kolkata, India in a statement.
Meanwhile, the results of the study will also serve to better prepare the hospitals involved to carry out future interventional trials of novel therapeutics which are able to combat carbapenem-resistant infections.
The organization also announced that GARDP’s observational study is also underway at five hospitals in South Africa.
A study published in The Lancet showed that nearly 1.3 million people died as a direct cause of antibiotic-resistant infections in 2019. AMR has become a major public health crisis in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
