In India, doctors prescribe broad-spectrum antibiotics without a diagnostic test for urinary tract infections, and dairy farmers inject antibiotics into cows with mastitis without knowing which drug will work. This project, led by the University of Edinburgh and IIT Delhi, aims to stop that guesswork. The core problem is that without rapid, affordable diagnostics, antibiotics are overused in human health, agriculture, and the environment—driving antimicrobial resistance (AMR). The team will study why people in India use antibiotics as they do, then design and validate three specific diagnostic tests: one for human UTIs, one for mastitis in dairy cows, and one to detect antibiotic residues in water. If successful, these diagnostics would let clinicians and farmers target the right antibiotic at the right dose, cutting unnecessary consumption. For patients, that means more effective treatment and lower mortality. For dairy farmers, it means healthier herds and better economic returns. For everyone, it means less antibiotic residue leaking into water and fewer resistant microbes spreading. The project is not fundamental science—it is a practical, user-driven engineering and social-science effort to build diagnostics that fit real community settings in India.
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Microbial pathogens resistance to antibiotics is a major challenge to societies around the globe. Microbes are becoming resistant to antibiotics rapidly to due to variety human action i.e., unnecessary prescription in healthcare, blanket prescription in agriculture and careless release of antibiotics into the environment. Lack of appropriate diagnostic methods is one of the major reasons for in appropriate and overuse of antibiotics. In this project, led by the University of Edinburgh and the IIT Delhi, researchers from India and UK with background in social sciences, technology innovation, and experts in different community settings come together to jointly address this issue. They plan to study current practices, user behaviors, social and economic reasons behind antibiotic consumption in India. Based on a user mapping study, they plan to formulate target product profiles i.e., specification of the diagnostic test for three communities setting. They aim to develop/validate rapid diagnostic assays for three different community settings i.e., urinary tract infections in human health, mastitis (infection of cows' udder) in dairy sector and antibiotics residue detection in water from the environment. Currently, due to lack of appropriate diagnostic technologies, doctors are prescribing broad spectrum antibiotics empirically (i.e. in a trial and error fashion) and farmers are using huge quantities of antibiotics in agriculture and fish farming without appropriate guidance and monitoring. Development of these diagnostic methods will help to reduce the unnecessary consumption, blind prescription and release of antibiotics. An improved diagnostic solution built into health/agriculture and environment settings will help to treat patients effectively and reduce mortality; will help agriculture farmers to get a better economic return for their produce and will reduce resistant transmission. This study brings together an interdisciplinary and international team to learn and support each other towards development of solutions to the global anti-microbial resistance challenge.
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