Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) drug resistance surveillance in the environment (wastewater).

My research team focuses on the surveillance of antimicrobial resistance genes in wastewater from several open drains and STPs in Delhi and Sonipat. This has been going on for 2 years now, and now we have a record of which AMR genes are present at different time points in these sites, found using NGS and AMR panels. We are also currently quantifying these genes using digital PCR. All of these help in understanding the AMR load in the environment and early detection of possible epidemics and pandemics, helping in better management and prevention of the spread of diseases. During this research, we were able to observe a lot of rifampicin resistance genes in the wastewater and since there is a surge in MDR TB in the clinical setting, our current research focus now is to know if these genes are from MTB. We would also like to do surveillance on Bedaquiline resistance as it is one of the recently approved drugs against MDR TB. This will help in getting a big picture of the MTB drug resistance prevalence not only in the regions across the selected wastewater sites of Delhi and Sonipat, but also in understanding MTB resistance as a whole. This helps in bringing more alert and management against the spread of TB resistance, which will help in saving people from fatal TB.