Birds perched on trees eye piles of uncollected mounds of garbage, the playgrounds of rats scampering in and out of the dirt. To the naked eye, this is the routine of life, several parts of the ecosystem co-existing.
However, beneath the surface is the constant war between bacteria, fighting to occupy space and depose each other. And this battle has implications on health, as people interact with the elements in that battle.
Eric Fevre, an infectious diseases expert and researcher at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) spends his days getting to the bottom of that battle (how the interaction between the environment, animals and people affect human health) by researching anti-microbial resistance – the scientific term describing how disease-causing pathogens such as bacteria, are evolving to become too strong to be killed by antibiotics.