Study raises health concerns over chickens bred in Punjab poultry farms
WASHINGTON/NEWDELHI: Scientists have found high levels of antibiotic-resistant pathogens in chickens being raised for eggs and meat in poultry farms in Punjab, raising serious health concerns for humans.
Researchers from the US-based Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy (CDDEP) collected samples from 530 birds in 18 poultry farms in Punjab and tested them for resistance to a range of antibiotic medications critical to human medicine. Two-thirds of the farms reported using antibiotic factors for growth promotion, according to the researchers.This simply means that antibiotics are overused at these farms to spur poultry growth, but the chickens gradually develop resistance to antibiotics. Once antibiotics do not work on such pathogens, they can carry that trait into the human body.
Dr AC Dhariwal, director of National Centre for Disease Control, said antibiotic resistance is a public health concern in India for which a national programme has been launched. “Different ministries including the ministry of agriculture which deals with usage of antibiotics in animal sector have also been involved,” he said while commenting on the outcome of the study.
Farm samples, which reported using antibiotic factors, were three times more likely to be multidrug-resistant than samples from farms that did not use antibiotics to promote growth, the researchers said. The team found that meat farms had twice the rates of antimicrobial resistance that egg-producing farms had, as well as higher rates of multidrug resistance.