Understanding and modelling reservoirs, vehicles and transmission of ESBL-producing Enterobacteriaceae in the community and long-term care facilities: the MODERN project

MODERN is an international collaborative project investigating the reservoirs and transmission of Enterobacteriaceae producing extended-spectrum β-lactamases (ESBL-E), funded by national institutions participating in the Joint Programme Initiative – Antimicrobial Resistance (JPI AMR) of the European Union with 1 million Euros. The project is coordinated by Hospital Universitario Virgen Macarena/University of Seville/Institute of Biomedicine of Seville, Spain, and include the following institutions as partners: University of Tubingen, Germany; University of Geneva, Switzerland; University Medical Centre Utrecht, The Netherlands; University Hospital, Besancon, France; and University of Oxford, UK. The study is targeting the transmission of ESBL-E in non-hospital environments such as households and long-term care facilities, and include food products, environmental reservoirs and wastewater. Advanced epidemiological methods and whole genome sequencing are being used to identify the rate and risk factors for transmission of these bacteria among residents in these environments in order to produce the information needed to build mathematical models explaining their spread, which will allow to estimate the impact of potential control measures. MODERN started in March 2017 and is expected to deliver results by March 2020.