Global Antimicrobial Resistance: from Surveillance to Stewardship. Part 1: Surveillance and Risk Factors for Resistance

22nd European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. London, UK, 31 March-3 April 2012. As concerns about global antibiotic resistance shift from Gram-positive to Gram-negative bacteria, the annual congress of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, in London (UK) provided a valuable opportunity for the nearly 10,000 delegates to discuss the latest global trends. In this first report from the conference, the authors review data from the SMART trial, which recently marked a decade of monitoring antibiotic resistance of Gram-negative bacteria from intra-abdominal infections, and from the rapidly developing European Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance Network. The authors also focus on the spread of nonmetallo-β-lactamase carbapenemases, and likely risk factors for resistance.