Review of airborne antimicrobial resistance

The spread of antimicrobial-resistant microorganisms and their genes in the environment is of increasing concern, with legislators seeking evidence to advise the regulation of environmental pathways for the spread of resistance. However, most of this evidence has been gathered from aquatic (for example, freshwaters, seawater) and terrestrial (for example, soil) systems, with little concerted effort to establish a knowledge base for airborne antimicrobial resistance.

This report seeks to summarise the available literature on airborne antimicrobial resistance, with a view to establishing what is known, what hypotheses are emerging from this, and what knowledge gaps there are in current scientific work on airborne antimicrobial resistance.