Antimicrobial and Antifungal Resistance in Domestic Animals, Synanthropic Species and Wildlife

Dear Colleagues,

The phenomenon of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is one of the major public health problems worldwide, with important clinical and economic implications. Concurrently, invasive fungal infections pose an emerging concern in all continents; in fact, human-infecting pathogenic fungi are evolving resistance to all licensed systemic antifungal drugs, but this is an under-recognized component of AMR.

The mechanisms of resistance of drugs are complex because they depend on several causes, ranging from indiscriminate use, overuse, and misuse of these treatments in human and veterinary medicine, animal husbandry, and agriculture to the spread of infections caused by drug-resistant microorganisms and the increase in resistant strains. The mechanism and aspects of this adaptive process are mirrored across the fungal kingdom, and pathogenic fungi can also acquire resistance through analogous mechanisms.

Across a period of profound global environmental changes and continuous spread of resistance to antibiotic and antifungal drugs, it becomes critical for surveillance and containment of this phenomenon to study and collect data at every level of the ecosystem and particularly on animals, which are often true sentinels, reflecting human activities and their impact on the environment.

This Special Issue aims to investigate and collect information and data about the antimicrobial and antifungal resistance phenomenon in domestic animals, synanthropic species, and wildlife, encouraging study and surveys also in rural areas and small agricultural farms where animals of different species often congregate; here, in particular, the horizontal transmission of pathogens occurs due to interindividual and interspecies contact, including interaction with wild animals, animals often not being subjected to treatment, or inappropriate use of drugs.

Dr. Tamara P. Russo
Dr. Antonio Santaniello
Guest Editors

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