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Hundreds of antibiotic resistant genes found in the gastrointestinal tracts of Danish infants

Posted in biotech/medical

“It’s a wake-up call that one-year-old children are already carrying gut bacteria that are resistant to very important types of antibiotics. New resistant bacteria are becoming more widespread due to increased antibiotic consumption. The horror scenario is that we will one day lack the antibiotics needed to treat life-threatening bacterial infections such as pneumonia or foodborne illnesses,” explains Department of Biology professor Søren Sørensen, who led the study.


Danish one-year-olds carry several hundred antibiotic resistant in their bacterial according to a new study from the University of Copenhagen. The presence of these genes is partly attributable to among mothers during pregnancy.

An estimated 700000 people die every year from and diseases. The WHO expects this figure to multiply greatly in coming decades. To study how occurs in humans’ natural bacterial flora, researchers from the University of Copenhagen’s Department of Biology analyzed stool samples from 662 Danish one-year-old children.

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