E. coli resistance has grown steadily since early 2000s, Wellcome Sanger Institute and University of Oslo confirm

The biggest genomic survey of E. coli to date has shown that its antibiotic resistance has been steadily increasing since the early 2000s, despite our attempts to control it. Researchers have managed to track the spread of antibiotic resistant genes – and shown that they are being transferred between E. coli strains. The work has taken more than 16 years in Norway.

Researchers from the Wellcome Sanger Institute and the University of Oslo have also compared multidrug resistance in Norway to a previous UK study. They learned that resistant strains developed around the same time, but increased more rapidly in the UK population – possibly because it is larger.