COVID-19 Lockdowns May Reduce Resistance Genes Diversity in the Human Microbiome and the Need for Antibiotics.
Int J Mol Sci
; 22(13)2021 Jun 26.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1288897
ABSTRACT
Recently, much attention has been paid to the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet bacterial resistance to antibiotics remains a serious and unresolved public health problem that kills hundreds of thousands of people annually, being an insidious and silent pandemic. To contain the spreading of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, populations confined and tightened hygiene measures. We performed this study with computer simulations and by using mobility data of mobile phones from Google in the region of Lisbon, Portugal, comprising 3.7 million people during two different lockdown periods, scenarios of 40 and 60% mobility reduction. In the simulations, we assumed that the network of physical contact between people is that of a small world and computed the antibiotic resistance in human microbiomes after 180 days in the simulation. Our simulations show that reducing human contacts drives a reduction in the diversity of antibiotic resistance genes in human microbiomes. Kruskal-Wallis and Dunn's pairwise tests show very strong evidence (p < 0.000, adjusted using the Bonferroni correction) of a difference between the four confinement regimes. The proportion of variability in the ranked dependent variable accounted for by the confinement variable was η2 = 0.148, indicating a large effect of confinement on the diversity of antibiotic resistance. We have shown that confinement and hygienic measures, in addition to reducing the spread of pathogenic bacteria in a human network, also reduce resistance and the need to use antibiotics.
Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Genetic Variation
/
Drug Resistance, Microbial
/
Anti-Bacterial Agents
Limits:
Humans
Language:
English
Year:
2021
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Ijms22136891
Similar
MEDLINE
...
LILACS
LIS