Abdoulie Bojang re-joined MRC Unit The Gambia at LSHTM in 2008 after completing his MSc in Biomedical Science. He worked as a Scientific Officer for 5 years primarily responsible for the management, training and supervision of laboratory technicians on a number epidemiological studies and clinical trials. In 2013, he was promoted to a Higher Scientific Officer in charge of the PregnAnZI-1 project. Abdoulie was responsible for the training and supervision of the scientific officer. The PregnAnZI-1 study involved giving 2g of oral azithromycin or placebo to women in labour with the aim of determining the impact of the antibiotic on bacterial carriage. The study revealed that giving oral azithromycin to women in labour significantly reduced bacterial carriage of both the mother and the baby as well as reduced maternal and neonatal infections. However, azithromycin exposure resulted in a significant increase in the azithromycin resistant S. aureus within a month.
In 2016, Abdoulie won a scholarship to undertake a 4 year PhD study entitled: epidemiology of s. aureus transmission, genetic diversity, long term prevalence and mechanisms of antimicrobial resistance following one oral dose of azithromycin given to women during labour.
One of the objectives of his PhD study is to determine the long term (12 months) impact of the azithromycin on the carriage and antibiotic resistance of S. pneumoniae and S. aureus which is the focus of the current manuscript.
In the study, nasopharyngeal swabs (NPS) were collected between November 2014 and May 2015 from children 11-13 months old whose mothers had received azithromycin or placebo during labour. S. pneumoniae and S. aureus were isolated using conventional microbiological methods. Antibiotic susceptibility was determined by disc diffusion and confirmed by E-test.
In conclusion, the higher prevalence of S. aureus azithromycin resistance observed among women treated during labour and their babies four weeks after treatment. This has waned off 12 months after delivery. Azithromycin intervention did not induce other antibiotic resistance to S. pneumoniae or S. aureus.
Abdoulies’s study results was published in the Clinical of Infectious Diseases Journal.
https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciy254/495…
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