Sonika Kar

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) poses a critical threat to global health, food security, and economic development. India is a major hotspot for AMR emergence, driven by high consumption of antimicrobials, often unregulated or used without a prescription. Recognizing this challenge, the India–UK AMR Network Meeting was jointly convened by the University of Leeds, UK, and SRM University-AP, India, to develop a multidisciplinary research network that focuses on integrated perspectives across human health, veterinary sciences, environmental microbiology, social medicine, and bioinformatics within a One Health framework. The meeting was held from January 21 to 23, 2026, at SRM University-AP, Andhra Pradesh, India. This network meeting brought together interdisciplinary experts from India and the United Kingdom to establish this collaborative framework. Key discussions addressed AMR surveillance strategies at the community level across themes such as human, animal, and environmental health. Topics included mechanisms such as cross-resistance versus co-resistance; human-to-pet transmission of AMR; seasonal and anthropogenic drivers of AMR; alternative interventions, including bacteriophages; and socio-behavioral determinants influencing antimicrobial misuse. This report summarizes the scientific deliberations and emerging research priorities identified during the meeting and highlights the urgent need for integrated, collaborative AMR surveillance across sectors and geographical regions, beginning with strengthened partnerships between India and the United Kingdom.

Acinetobacter (A.) baumannii is an important multidrug-resistant pathogen increasingly recognized across animal and environmental settings, and carbapenem-resistant A. baumannii (CRAB) is classified as a critical-priority pathogen by the World Health Organization. This study investigated the antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and genomic characteristics of 122 A. baumannii isolates comprising 72 veterinary and 50 environmental isolates collected in Andhra Pradesh, India. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing, whole-genome sequencing (WGS), resistance and virulence gene profiling, multilocus sequence typing (MLST), core-genome analysis, single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) phylogeny, and pan-genome analysis were performed. Overall, 58.2% of isolates were multidrug-resistant (MDR), and 41.8% were extensively drug-resistant (XDR). Sequence type (ST) 52 predominated among veterinary isolates, whereas ST2 was more frequent among environmental isolates. The presence of carbapenem-resistant isolates along with the ST2 lineage enhances the similarity to clinical A. baumannii. Several intrinsic resistance genes, including blaOXA-23, armA, aph(3″)-Ib, aph(6)-Id, tet(B), mph(E), and msr(E), were more prevalent in the ST2-associated population. Virulence-associated determinants were widely conserved. Core-genome MLST (cgMLST) and core-genome SNP (cgSNP) analyses identified highly related isolates within both lineages, while pairwise SNP differences were 0–7. Pan-genome analysis identified 4204 gene clusters and distinct accessory gene patterns between ST2 and ST52. These findings indicate that resistance gene distribution was closely associated with lineage structure and support integrated genomic surveillance of A. baumannii across animal and environmental reservoirs.