Scientist Works with Petri Dishes with Various Bacteria, Tissue and Blood Samples. Concept of Pharmaceutical Development for Antibiotics, Curing Disease with DNA Enhancing Drugs. Moving Close-up Macro
Global pressure to cut antimocrobial use in all food systems has increased in the lead up to the UN Food Systems Summit in New York on 23 September 2021.
Overnight a combined body of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), World Animal Health Organisation (OIE) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) issued a joint statement calling for “a significant and urgent reduction” in the amounts of antimicrobial drugs, including antibiotics, used in global food systems.
This included stopping the use of medically important antimicrobial drugs to promote growth in healthy animals and using antimicrobial drugs more responsibly overall.
This was “critical to combatting rising levels of drug resistance” the joint statement from the Global Leaders Group on Antimicrobial Resistance said.
The global body contains representatives from a range of member countries around the world. Australia is represented on the group by Federal Environment Minister Sussan Ley.
The call precedes the UN Food Systems Summit in September where member countries will discuss ways to transform global food systems.
The joint statement outlined several “key calls to action” for counties and leaders around the world to tackle drug resistance, including:
- Using antimicrobial drugs more responsibly in food systems and markedly reducingthe use of drugs that are of greatest importance to treating diseases in humans, animals and plants.
- Ending the use of antimicrobial drugs that are of critical importance to human medicine to promote growth in animals.
- Limiting the amount of antimicrobial drugs administered to prevent infection in healthy animals and plants and ensuring that all use is performed with regulatory oversight.
- Eliminating or significantly reducing over-the-counter sales of antimicrobial drugs that are important for medical or veterinary purposes.
- Reducing the overall need for antimicrobial drugs by improving infection prevention and control, hygeine, biosecurity and vaccination programmes in agriculture and aquaculture.
- Ensuring access to quality and affordable antimicrobials for animal and human health and promoting innovation of evidence based and sustainable alternatives to antimicrobials in food systems.
Inaction will have ‘dire consequences’
Antimicrobial drugs- (including antibiotics, antifungals and antiparasitics)- are used in food production all over the world. Antimicrobial drugs are administered to animals not only for veterinary purposes (to treat and prevent disease), but also to promote growth in healthy animals.
Antimicrobial pesticides are also used in agriculture to treat and prevent diseases in plants.
The statement noted that sometimes antimicrobials used in food systems are the same as or similar to those used to treat humans.
“Current usage in humans, animals and plants is leading to a concerning rise in drug-resistance and making infections harder to treat. Climate change may also be contributing to an increase in antimicrobial resistance.”
it said drug resistant diseases already cause at least 700,000 human deaths globally every year.
Whilst there have been substantial reductions in antibiotic use in animals globally, further reductions were needed.
“Without immediate and drastic action to significantly reduce levels of antimicrobial use in food systems, the world is rapidly heading towards a tipping point where the antimicrobials relied on to treat infections in humans, animals and plants will no longer be effective. The impact on local and global health systems, economies, food security and food systems will be devastating,” the statement siad.
“We cannot tackle rising levels of antimicrobial resistance without using antimicrobial drugs more sparingly across all sectors” said co-chair of the Global Leader Group on Antimicrobial Resistance, Her Excellency Mia Amor Mottley, Prime Minister of Barbados. “The world is in a race against antimicrobial resistance, and it’s one that we cannot afford to lose.’‘
Australia’s cattle industry has undertaken a variety of proactive initiatives over the past 20 years to position itself as a world leader in the judicious and prudent use of antibiotics, as industry bodies have detailed in this earlier article and on the Meat & Livestock Australia website.
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