Research

Find out more about the research projects at Kantele group.
Urinary tract infections (UTIs)

Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are among the most common infections treated in healthcare, and an increasing share are caused by bacteria with resistance to one or more antimicrobials. Travellers are key players in the global spread of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) with 30–70% of them contracting extended-spectrum betalactamase-producing Enterobacterales (ESBE-PE) when visiting LMICs (low- an middle-income countries). Our previous study on virulance factors reveals that approximately half of these travel-acquired ESBL-PE are uropathogens. Consistent with this, our recent work shows increased UTI incidence among travellers to high-AMR regions and identifies travellers’ diarrhoea and antibiotic use as risk factors for both UTI and carriage of resistant uropathogens.

Current projects

  • Travellers’ UTIs: incidence, risk factors, and outcomes
  • Characterisation of urinary pathogens acquired during travel
  • Non-antimicrobial prevention strategies, including faecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) in prevention of recurrent UTI
Antimicrobial resistance

Migrants and refugees; Patients hospitalized abroad; Misconsumption of antimicrobials; Intestinal colonisation; Vaccines.

Travel and Intestinal parasites
Oral vaccines: concomitant administration of oral cholera and typhoid vaccines
Traveller's diarrhoea

ETVAX vaccine against TD; Prolonged intestinal symptoms

Diarrhoeal pathogens

Studies in Guinea-Bissau; Studies in Benin