The research published today in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, combined microbiology, genomic, epidemiological, pharmacodynamic and economic data for the first time to study the efficacy of various antibiotic treatments for neonatal sepsis in seven Low- and Middle- Income Countries (LMICs) across Africa and South Asia. This research was done by an international network led by the microbiologists at the Division of Infection and Immunity, Cardiff, in collaboration with researchers at the University of Oxford, the paper proposes alternative antibiotics for septic neonates which could drastically decrease new-born mortality.
This research, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, studied over 36,000 infants over seven countries, making it the largest study of its kind. Data was procured by Burden of Antibiotic Resistance in Neonates from Developing Societies (BARNARDS), a project run by Professor Tim Walsh, which collected data across seven countries between April 2015 and March 2018. Prof. Walsh joined the University of Oxford in 2021 to help established the Ineos Oxford Institute of Antimicrobial Research. BARNARDS collected data from Nigeria, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Rwanda, South Africa, Ethiopia, and India, allowing researchers to have a vast amount of data to analyse.