India is a hub of antimicrobial resistance: Study
NEW DELHI: India and China are among the major hotspots for antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in livestock, which has massive implications for animal and human health as well as the supply of meat to feed the world’s rapidly-expanding population, said a study published in the journal, Science on Thursday.
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines AMR is the ability of a microorganism such as bacteria, viruses, and some parasites to stop an antimicrobial [like antibiotic, antiviral etc] from working against it. As a result, standard treatments become ineffective, infections persist and may spread to others.
More than half the of the world’s chicken (54%) and pigs (56%) are raised in Asia. AMR is driven by misuse and over-use of antimicrobials for intensive animal farming, and almost threefourth of all antibiotics used are i n animals raised f or f ood, according to the study.
Globally, the proportion of drugs with a failure rate of 50% increased annually 173% in c hickens and 1 6 1 % i n pi gs between 2000 and 2018, according to data from 901 point-prevalence surveys. Point prevalence is the proportion of a population that has the condition at a specific point in time. The study identified north-eastern India, north-eastern China, northern Pakistan, Iran, eastern Turkey, south coast of Brazil, Nile delta, Red river delta in Vietnam and the areas surrounding Mexico City and Johannesburg as AMR hotspots. The study stresses the need for controlling AMR in animals as the emerging infectious diseases are associated with drug-resistant pathogens that are transferring from animals to humans. “Whenever we talk about antibiotic resistance, we talk about people but it is necessary to understand that it is a huge problem among animals as well. This is the first global study that looks at the trends of antimicrobial resistance among animals,” said Ramanan Laxminarayan, study co-author and director of Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy, Washington DC, United States. “In Asia, targeted interventions such as legislative action and subsidies t o improve farm hygiene could reduce the need for antimicrobials in animal production,” the study said.
While Africa has no hotspot except Johannesburg, scientists warn that missing AMR data in Uruguay, Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil is a global concern as these are big meat exporters.
High temperature also raises AMR. “High temperature causes stress and conflicts in animals, t hus i ncreasing t he risk of wounds that require preventive antimicrobial treatment,” the study said. Of greater concern is the presence of resistance to third and fourth generation antibiotics, used when no other antibiotics work, and which are critical for treatment of human beings. “The use of antibiotics in animals is very high in India and China, and the worry is that the antibiotic resistance in animals and resistant pathogens in the environment will find its way to humans,” said Dr Pallab Ray, professor of microbiology at Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh, who has worked extensively on AMR.