Ugandan project student continues work on multi-resistant Salmonella isolates at German partners’ labs

ILRI graduate fellow Dickson Ndoboli (right) in the laboratory of Safe Food, Fair Food project partner Freie Universitaet Berlin, Germany (photo credit: ILRI/Dickson Ndoboli).

From August to October 2015, Dickson Ndoboli, an ILRI graduate fellow in the GIZ-funded, ILRI-led Safe Food, Fair Food project, was hosted by project partners at Freie Universität Berlin, Germany, to continue his research on antibiotic resistance and plasmid profile analysis of Salmonella strains from Uganda.

Resistance to antiinfective drugs can develop naturally in bacteria, or by genetic mutation, or by acquiring it from another bacterium. Misuse of antimicrobials can contribute building up resistance over time with the result that infections with – in this case – Salmonella can become increasingly difficult or impossible to treat with antimicrobial drugs.

The work builds on preliminary findings from a study on flies as vectors for disease by Martin Heilmann and Dickson Ndoboli. The study showed that raw pork in Kampala butcheries is highly contaminated with Salmonella spp.. Initial screenings showed high levels of resistance to a number of antibiotics, of which some are listed on the World Health Organization’s List of Essential medicines.

We want to thank Dr. Stephan Huehn for his excellent supervision as well as Professor Thomas Alter and Professor Peter-Henning Clausen for their facilitation of the internship in Berlin.

Related research:

Grace, D., Unger, F., Roesel, K., Tinega, G., Ndoboli, D., Sinh Dang-Xuan, Hung Nguyen-Viet and Robinson, T. 2015. Present and future use of antimicrobials in pigs with case studies from Uganda and Vietnam. Presented at the Safe Pork 2015 Conference, Porto, Portugal, 8-10 September 2015. Nairobi, Kenya: ILRI. https://cgspace.cgiar.org/handle/10568/68304

Heilmann, M. 2014. Flies as potential carriers for diseases in pork butcheries in Kampala. Presented at the ILRI Nairobi Seminar, Nairobi, Kenya, 26 November 2014. Nairobi, Kenya: ILRI. https://cgspace.cgiar.org/handle/10568/52327

Heilmann, M., Ndoboli, D., Roesel, K., Grace, D., Huehn, S., Bauer, B. and Clausen, P.-H. 2015. Occurrence of Salmonella spp. in flies and foodstuff from pork butcheries in Kampala, Uganda. Presented at the Annual Expert Meeting on Parasitology and Parasitic Diseases at the German Veterinary Association, Stralsund, Germany, 29 June–1 July 2015. Nairobi, Kenya: ILRI. https://cgspace.cgiar.org/handle/10568/68283

Heilmann, M., Mtimet, N., Roesel, K. and Grace, D. 2015. Assessing Ugandan pork butchers’ practices and their perception of customers’ preferences: A best-worst approach. Poster prepared for the 9th European Congress on Tropical Medicine and International Health, Basel, Switzerland, 6–10 September 2015. Nairobi, Kenya: ILRI. https://cgspace.cgiar.org/handle/10568/68509