Skip to main navigationSkip to main content
The University of Southampton
Global Network for Anti-Microbial Resistance and Infection Prevention

UK-Argentina Workshop: Antimicrobial Resistance in the Environment

Published: 4 October 2018
El Trebol Farm and flags
Warm welcome at the El Trebol Farm in Argentina

Over the last year, NAMRIP has been making connections around the world to form Global-NAMRIP, an international network on AntiMicrobial Resistance and Infection Prevention, focusing specially on the problems in Low-and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs). Successes have included holding NAMRIP’s 2018 conference in Accra, Ghana, with representatives from across Africa and NAMRIP’s UK base in Southampton, and the formation of an Indian network.

 

The success in India followed a trip there by Professor Xunli Zhang in November last year. Xunli set off on his travels again last week as part of our outreach to form an arm of Global-NAMRIP in South America. He attended a 5-day partnering workshop on Antimicrobial Resistance in the Environment, jointly organised by BBSRC/NERC and CONICET (the National Scientific and Technical Research Council of Argentina). This was held in Buenos Aires on 10-14 September 2018.

 

Dairy Farm
Delegates at the workshop visiting a dairy farm

The workshop was attended by around 45 academics from Argentina and the UK, as well as representatives from the funding agencies involved in the initiative. It provided opportunities for participants to (i) better understand key challenges around AMR in Argentinian agriculture and more widely, and its impact on the emergence and spread of resistance in the environment that are  relevant to other low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), and (ii) consider the research landscape and relevant expertise available in the UK and Argentina.

 

Cattle feed lot
Visiting a cattle feed lot with around 20,000 cows

 

The workshop included site visits to agricultural facilities to help provide participants with some real context behind the key challenges in agricultural/environmental AMR for Argentina that new collaborative research projects could aim to address.

The intensive interactive activities provided further opportunities for face-to-face networking and for new UK-Argentina research collaborations to develop.

 

Cattle Feed lot
Inside a chicken house

NAMRIP member Professor Xunli Zhang of the School of Engineering at the University of Southampton explained further “Over the 2-day site visits we visited a pig farm, a cow feed lot, a dairy farm and a chicken farm as part of our AMR in the environment partnering workshop to understand the context specific challenges farmers in Argentina face”.

Professor Leighton, Chair of NAMRIP and Global-NAMRIP, said “Xunli is a tremendous ambassador for our work at NAMRIP and I am delighted with the progress we are making to make contacts to address the challenge of AntiMicrobial Resistance and Infection Prevention in LMICs, the terrible effects of which will be seen first in Low-and Middle Income Countries (LMICs). I look forward very much to seeing the growth in LMICs of AMR networks that follow the multidisciplinary NAMRIP philosophy, of identifying the critical problems, researching game-changing solutions, and implementing them for societal gain: that means getting the researchers, end-users and policymakers talking together to share a common vision from the outset.”

 

Privacy Settings