The medical research charity the Wellcome Trust has provided funding for these projects through its Beowulf Genomics initiative which aims to unravel the genetic makeup of bacteria which cause infectious diseases. The sequencing data from Beowulf projects will be available on the internet. This is a vital first step in the development of more effective treatments. Although not common, there has been an increasing number of cases reported to the World Health Organisation.
Recent reports indicate that the bacterium causing plague is becoming resistant to antibiotics.
Whooping cough is an acute, highly contagious infection of the respiratory tract and mostly affects young children. There is a vaccine to prevent infection but this does not always work. Concern about side effects of the vaccine has resulted in some parents choosing not to have their children vaccinated. With an increase in reported cases since the early 1980s, an insight into the genome of this bacterium would help identify why it remains a threat to health and help in developing better vaccines. The Wellcome Trust has set up Beowulf Genomics, a non-profit collaborative initiative to sequence the genomes of bacteria which cause some of the world's most significant infectious diseases.