July 27, 2018

UN report: Many countries still using antibiotics for animal weight gain

A United Nations report revealed that most countries are still making use of viral antibiotics, which should only be used to treat humans, as growth promoters for animals. 

The use of antibiotics to prevent or treat diseases and to make animals grow faster, can create bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics, known as superbugs, and can spread via contact with animals, farmers, in the environment and in food and can infect humans as well as.

Superbugs have killed an estimated 700,000 people worldwide and antibiotic resistance is known to be one of the greatest threats to public health.

At present, only 42% of the countries have limited their use of antibiotics, according to the new report produced in collaboration between the World Health Organisation (WHO), Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and World Organisation for Animal Health (OiE). Majority of them come from the Europe region while only a small number come countries in Africa and the US.

"Progress is a little too slow. It needs to go faster," said Henk Jan Ormel, senior policy advisor to the FAO's Chief Veterinary Officer.

Ormel voiced that due to a lack of investment in the animal, plant, food and agriculture sectors, there are limited alternatives (for e.g. access to better and better animal husbandry) to using antibiotics for farmers.

During a conference on the report, he also urged every country to eliminate the use of antibiotics for growth promotion.

After an investigation by the Bureau earlier this year, it was found that one of India's biggest poultry companies was administering its chickens with one of the highest priority antibiotics, colistin. A 'last resort' drug by experts, it is used to treat some of the most resistant infections in humans.

The UN report also warned of antibiotics leaking from pharmaceutical factories creating more superbugs. Currently, only 10 countries have imposed regulations to limit antibiotics escaping in waste from the factories that produce them. The report stated, "This level of regulation is insufficient to protect the environment from the hazards of antimicrobial production."

Majority of the low-income countries have taken initiatives to raise awareness on the threats of overusing antibiotics in human medicine, leaving out only a third that has yet to run campaigns on this matter as compared to 4% of high-income countries, the UN report adds.