BackgroundAccurate estimates of the burden of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) are needed to establish the magnitude of this global threat in terms of both health and cost, and to paramaterise cost-effectiveness evaluations of interventions aiming to tackle the problem. This review aimed to establish the alternative methodologies used in estimating AMR burden in order to appraise the current evidence base.MethodsMEDLINE, EMBASE, Scopus, EconLit, PubMed and grey literature were searched. English language studies evaluating the impact of AMR (from any microbe) on patient, payer/provider and economic burden published between January 2013 and December 2015 were included. Independent screening of title/abstracts followed by full texts was performed using pre-specified criteria. A study quality score (from zero to one) was derived using Newcastle-Ottawa and Philips checklists. Extracted study data were used to compare study method and resulting burden estimate, according to perspective. Monetary costs were converted into 2013 USD.ResultsOut of 5187 unique retrievals, 214 studies were included. One hundred eighty-seven studies estimated patient health, 75 studies estimated payer/provider and 11 studies estimated economic burden. 64% of included studies were single centre. The majority of studies estimating patient or provider/payer burden used regression techniques. 48% of studies estimating mortality burden found a significant impact from resistance, excess healthcare system costs ranged from non-significance to $1 billion per year, whilst economic burden ranged from $21,832 per case to over $3 trillion in GDP loss. Median quality scores (interquartile range) for patient, payer/provider and economic burden studies were 0.67 (0.56-0.67), 0.56 (0.46-0.67) and 0.53 (0.44-0.60) respectively.ConclusionsThis study highlights what methodological assumptions and biases can occur dependent on chosen outcome and perspective. Currently, there is considerable variability in burden estimates, which can lead in-turn to inaccurate intervention evaluations and poor policy/investment decisions. Future research should utilise the recommendations presented in this review.Trial registrationThis systematic review is registered with PROSPERO (PROSPERO CRD42016037510).Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s13756-018-0336-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Mitigating the risks of antibiotic resistance requires a horizon scan linking the quality with the quantity of data reported on drivers of antibiotic resistance in humans, arising from the human, animal, and environmental reservoirs. We did a systematic review using a One Health approach to survey the key drivers of antibiotic resistance in humans. Two sets of reviewers selected 565 studies from a total of 2819 titles and abstracts identified in Embase, MEDLINE, and Scopus (2005-18), and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and WHO (One Health data). Study quality was assessed in accordance with Cochrane recommendations. Previous antibiotic exposure, underlying disease, and invasive procedures were the risk factors with most supporting evidence identified from the 88 risk factors retrieved. The odds ratios of antibiotic resistance were primarily reported to be between 2 and 4 for these risk factors when compared with their respective controls or baseline risk groups. Food-related transmission from the animal reservoir and water-related transmission from the environmental reservoir were frequently quantified. Uniformly quantifying relationships between risk factors will help researchers to better understand the process by which antibiotic resistance arises in human infections.

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Antibiotics are defined as a category of natural, semi-synthetic or chemical compound with anti-microbial activity, which is extensively used to control and prevent for infectious diseases in animals and humans, and may be added in the feed as growth promoters to promote the growth and development of animals. Until recently, the main concern about inclusion of antibiotics as supplements in animal feeds is connected to antibiotic residues in products (milk, egg and meat) developed from the treated animals. These residues may cause a range of side effects such as immunopathological effects, transfer of antibiotic resistant bacteria to humans, mutagenicity, allergy, hepatotoxicity, reproductive disorders, nephropathy, bone marrow toxicity and even carcinogenicity. One of the most significant adverse effect of antibiotic residues is the transfer of antibiotic resistant bacteria to the humans due to the mobile properties of resistance. The rising use of antibiotic consumption in India is reflected through emerging drug resistance problem and regulations for the use of antibiotics in animals and human are still very poor. The unnecessary use of antibiotics in food producing animals is contributing to the antibiotic resistance development in zoonotic bacteria. Because of these detrimental effects, it is essential to regulate the antibiotic use in food animals. Farmers and veterinary practitioners should be aware of the problem through education by authorities. Now-adays there are good number of alternatives to antibiotics use; such as probiotics, prebiotics, herbal additives, organic acids, enzymes, active plant metabolites etc. which may boost production performance and immunity of the livestock and poultry without any adverse effect.

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Background: Human papillomavirus (HPV) infection is a pre-requisite for cervical cancer, which represents the third most common cancer among women worldwide. A causal relationship also exists between HPV and cancer in other areas of the female reproductive system including the vagina and vulva. Whilst the incidence of vaginal cancer in the UK has remained relatively stable over the past 25 years, vulval cancer rates are increasing. A body of literature exists on the epidemiology and aetiology of vaginal and vulval cancer, but little is known about the economic burden. The objective of this study was to quantify the costs of treating these cancers on the National Health Service (NHS) in England. Methods: Inpatient and outpatient episodes were derived from Hospital Episode Statistics (HES). Health Resource Group (HRG) tariffs and National Reference Costs were used to estimate the cost of treating pre-cancerous and invasive vaginal and vulval lesions in England. Results: The study showed that for the 5 years from 2009/2010 to 2014/2015 the total cost associated with precancerous and invasive vaginal and vulval lesions was over £14 million per year on average (95% of which was attributed to inpatient costs). Vulval cancer accounted for the largest proportion; an estimated 60% of the total cost (£8.82 million). On average 4316 patients per year in England were admitted to hospital and 912 patients attended outpatient settings for pre-cancerous and invasive disease of the vagina and vulva. Conclusion:The results indicate that vaginal and vulval cancer cost the English health care system over £14 million per year. Given the causal role of HPV in a proportion of these cancers, preventative measures such as the national HPV immunisation programme have the potential to reduce the economic burden. To ensure optimal use of NHS resources, it is important that future economic evaluations of such preventative measures consider the full burden of HPV related disease.

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BackgroundAntibiotic resistance (ABR) is an urgent problem globally, with overuse and misuse of antibiotics being one of the main drivers of antibiotic-resistant infections. There is increasing evidence that the burden of community-acquired infections such as urinary tract infections and bloodstream infections (both susceptible and resistant) may differ by ethnicity, although the reasons behind this relationship are not well defined. It has been demonstrated that socioeconomic status and ethnicity are often highly correlated with each other; however, it is not yet known whether accounting for deprivation completely explains any discrepancy seen in infection risk. There have currently been no systematic reviews summarising the evidence for the relationship between ethnicity and antibiotic resistance or prescribing.MethodsThis protocol will outline how we will conduct this systematic literature review and meta-analysis investigating whether there is an association between patient ethnicity and (1) risk of antibiotic-resistant infections or (2) levels of antibiotic prescribing in high-income countries. We will search PubMed/MEDLINE, EMBASE, Global Health, Scopus and CINAHL using MESH terms where applicable. Two reviewers will conduct title/abstract screening, data extraction and quality assessment independently. The Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) checklist will be used for cohort and case-control studies, and the Cochrane collaboration’s risk of bias tool will be used for randomised control trials, if they are included. Meta-analyses will be performed by calculating the minority ethnic group to majority ethnic group odds ratios or risk ratios for each study and presenting an overall pooled odds ratio for the two outcomes. The Grading of Recommendations, Assessments, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) approach will be used to assess the overall quality of the body of evidence.DiscussionIn this systematic review and meta-analysis, we will aim to collate the available evidence of whether there is a difference in rates of AMR and/or antibiotic prescribing in minority vs. majority ethnic groups in high-income countries. Additionally, this review will highlight areas where more research needs to be conducted and may provide insight into what may cause differences in this relationship, should they be seen.Systematic review registrationPROSPERO (CRD42016051533)Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s13643-017-0654-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.