Travellers with the runs might find that the antibiotics won't work

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2025-12-23 03:00

Australia; International; VIC

Photo by John Medlicott on Unsplash. Story by Lyndal Byford, Australian Science Media Centre

The bacteria causing travellers' diarrhoea vary in their susceptibility to key antibiotics, depending on which country they come from, according to new international and Australian research. The study tracked the antibiotic resistance patterns of four common bacteria that cause diarrhoea in 859 international travellers across 103 countries, including Australia and NZ. They found that the top world regions for antibiotic resistance were sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, regions whose residents have the highest diarrhoea burden globally. While Australia and NZ only had data for one group of bacteria, Campylobacter, it showed very low rates of antibiotic resistance across both countries.

Attachments

Note: Not all attachments are visible to the general public. Research URLs will go live after the embargo ends.

Research JAMA, Web page Please link to the article in online versions of your report (the URL will go live after the embargo ends).

Journal/
conference: JAMA Network Open

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: Monash University, The University of Melbourne, CIWEC Hospital and Travel Medicine Center, Nepal

Funder: GeoSentinel, the Global Surveillance Network of the International Society of Travel Medicine (ISTM), is supported by a Cooperative Agreement (5 U01 CK000632-04) from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as well as funding from the ISTM (Federal Award Number: 1 U01 CK000632-01-00) and the Public Health Agency of Canada. Dr Hamer receives stipend from the US CDC Cooperative Agreement for his role JAMANetwork Open | Infectious Diseases GeoSentinel Analysis of Travelers’ Diarrhea Antimicrobial Resistance Patterns JAMA Network Open. 2025;8(12):e2551089. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.51089 (Reprinted) December 22, 2025 12/15 Confidential: Embargoed Until 11:00 am ET, December 22, 2025. Do Not Distribute in the GeoSentinel Network. Dr McGuinness is supported by a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) of Australia Investigator Grant (GNT2017229). Dr Muhi is supported by a NHMRC Postgraduate Scholarship (GNT1191368). This work was also supported by the Italian Ministry of Health Fondi Ricerca corrente– L1P3 to IRCCS Sacro Cuore Don Calabria Hospital, Fondi 5 per mille 2021 (project 5M-2021-23684029).

Media Contact/s

Contact details are only visible to registered journalists.