ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE IS SPREADING FROM PEOPLE TO CHIMPANZEES

“Our results suggest that antibiotic-resistant bacteria is actually spreading from people to non-human primates by making its way into the local watershed,” says senior author Thomas Gillespie, an associate professor in Emory University’s environmental sciences department and Rollins School of Public Health.

“People are bathing and washing in the streams, contaminating the water with drug-resistant bacteria where wild chimpanzees and baboons drink.”

The researchers tested for genes conferring resistance to sulfonamides—drugs people in the region often use to treat diarrheal diseases—in fecal samples from humans, domestic animals, chimpanzees, and baboons in and around Gombe National Park. They also tested stream water used by these groups.