New EU network to tackle antibiotic resistance
A pan-European network to tackle the problem of antibiotic resistance was launched on 17 March in Brussels. The GRACE (Genomics to combat resistance against antibiotics in community-acquired LRTI in Europe) network, part-funded under the Sixth Framework Programme (FP6), joins resources from 17 different EU institutions in nine Member States. EU Science and Research Commissioner Janez Potocnik said: 'We know that there is growing concern among the public about rising rates of antibiotic resistance to illnesses that affect many of us every year. GRACE is a good example of research tackling the issues that matter to people. By pooling our excellence at European level, we have a much better chance of finding answers more quickly.' Antibiotic resistance varies from country to country, but has made headlines all over Europe, with outbreaks of 'superbugs' such as MRSA and C. Diff. claiming the lives of the elderly and frail. The GRACE project will examine the effects of these bacteria, which specifically cause infections of the lower respiratory tract, such as bronchitis or pneumonia. The GRACE project envisages a genomic laboratory network in eight European countries supported by a primary care research network in 11 European countries. There are no accepted EU-wide guidelines for the use of antibiotics - doctors are free to prescribe or not as they see fit. Lower respiratory tract illness is the single most common condition treated in primary care in Europe today. Acute bronchitis affects over 16 million people per year in Europe, with 70 to 90 per cent of patients prescribed antibiotics to treat it. However, the study also aims to educate the patient. Patients who do not complete their course of antibiotics leave themselves open to re-infection, with the possibility of their infections mutating to leave the bacteria resistant to those antibiotics. Common types of lower respiratory tract illness include community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). More than three million cases of (CAP) occur annually in the EU, with some 500,000 cases requiring hospitalisation. Mortality rates run between five and 15 per cent. By 2020, COPD will be the third most common cause of mortality in Europe, with more than six million deaths per year. As diseases such as CAP and COPD are more dangerous in the elderly, the costs of such diseases will become an ever greater drain on resources and lives as the EU population ages. Professor Herman Goossens is a Director of University Hospital, Antwerp, Belgium, and GRACE's coordinator. 'The key to controlling the development of antibiotic resistance is to be able to target antibiotics selectively,' he said. 'Our hope is on new and rapid diagnostics and I speculate that the next decade will witness revolutionary changes in diagnostic bedside testing for infections in the community.' GRACE will proactively organise streams of education, including web-based teaching and practical courses, as well as providing information materials for doctors, the public and policy-makers. Information will also feed through two leading European scientific societies - the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases and the European Respiratory Society. GRACE will eventually be instrumental in conducting clinical trails in areas such as flu, rapid diagnostic testing, evaluating new antibiotics, antivirals, and vaccines. This could potentially lead to a virtual 'European Lower Respiratory Tract Infection Research Centre'. The network is receiving 11.5 million euro from the European Commission's Sixth Research Framework Programme, and is expected to run until at least 2011.