AMD Projects: Combating Healthcare-associated Infections

In the first two years of this project, CDC has been building advanced molecular detection (AMD) infrastructure to understand healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) and emerging antimicrobial resistance (AR) in these pathogens. Scientists have focused their work on determining how these germs are transmitted in healthcare settings, understanding various strains involved in outbreaks, and looking for new ways in which the pathogens become resistant to antimicrobials. The diversity of pathogens involved in HAIs has presented a challenge in this work because methods used to detect and study one germ typically do not work on the others, so scientists must devise new methods for each pathogen, and sometimes for various strains of the same pathogen. This is demonstrated by the 250 genomes sequenced from HAI outbreak and transmission studies, including studies of C. difficile, Clostridium septicum, E. coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Mycobacterium abscessus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus, and Enterococcus faecalis.

Nonetheless, CDC investigators have made progress and participated in active surveillance of these pathogens. By adding AMD to surveillance, we can look more deeply at the characteristics of various strains, determine if existing medications will be effective against a circulating strain, track how infectious a strain is, and determine if the strain is developing new AR characteristics. CDC also shares information about these pathogens with the scientific community to ensure that researchers and drug manufacturers are working with the most current strains of HAIs that we find in healthcare settings. Ongoing work in this area will help us detect and treat HAIs faster and more effectively.