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WHO Bacterial Priority Pathogens (2017)

The World Health Organization publishes a periodic priority list of antibiotic-resistant bacteria to guide research, surveillance, and stewardship efforts. QualiBact provides species-level genome assembly QC thresholds for most of the species named below — click through to see the recommended thresholds.

Source: World Health Organization. Global priority list of antibiotic-resistant bacteria to guide research, discovery, and development of new antibiotics, 2017.

Download QC thresholds (WHO 2017 list, CSV)4-bound thresholds (FAIL + WARN) for every species on this list, grouped by tier.

Critical priority

Acinetobacter baumannii

carbapenem-resistant

Pseudomonas aeruginosa

carbapenem-resistant

Enterobacteriaceae

carbapenem-resistant, third-generation cephalosporin-resistant
46 covered species across Escherichia, Klebsiella, Enterobacter, Citrobacter, Salmonella, Serratia, Proteus:

High priority

Enterococcus faecium

vancomycin-resistant

Staphylococcus aureus

meticillin-resistant, vancomycin intermediate / resistant

Helicobacter pylori

clarithromycin-resistant

Campylobacter spp.

fluoroquinolone-resistant
7 covered species across Campylobacter:

Salmonellae

fluoroquinolone-resistant

Neisseria gonorrhoeae

cephalosporin-resistant, fluoroquinolone-resistant

Providencia species

third-generation cephalosporin-resistant
2 covered species across Providencia:

Medium priority

Streptococcus pneumoniae

penicillin non-susceptible

Haemophilus influenzae

ampicillin-resistant

Shigella spp.

fluoroquinolone-resistant

Shigella is phylogenetically nested within Escherichia coli; E. coli thresholds are the closest available proxy until Shigella-specific thresholds are added.