American and Canadian epidemiologists linked antibiotic resistance in common bacterial strains with high local temperatures and population densities.
A new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change revealed how environmental pressure was at play to make bacteria develop antibiotic resistance, previously thought largely due to repeated exposure through over-prescribing.
“The effects of climate are increasingly being recognized in a variety of infectious diseases, but so far as we know this is the first time it has been implicated in the distribution of antibiotic resistance over geographies,” said the study’s lead author, Derek MacFadden, an infectious disease specialist and research fellow at Boston Children’s Hospital.
“We also found a signal that the associations between antibiotic resistance and temperature could be increasing over time,” said…
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