Soaring antibiotic use in animals fuels ‘super bug’ fears, says study

Rome, March 23: Developing countries are pumping livestock full of antibiotics at such a startling rate that they are dramatically increasing the risk of creating drug-resistant “super bugs”, scientists warned on Monday.

Antibiotic use in animals is expected to surge by two thirds globally between 2010 and 2030, while doubling in emerging giants like China, Brazil, India and Russia, according to a Princeton University study.

It warned that the practice is pushing us closer to a time when common infections could become a death sentence because they will no longer respond to drugs.

Consumption of meat, Antibiotic use in animals is expected to surge by two thirds globally between 2010 and 2030, while doubling in emerging giants like China, Brazil, India and Russia milk and eggs is growing fast in many developing and middle-income countries.

Urbanisation, increased wealth and changing diets mean industrial livestock producers are expanding rapidly.

They are relying on antibiotics to keep disease at bay in the short-term, said co-author Tim Robinson, a scientist with the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI).

But the systematic use of low doses on livestock is creating “perfect conditions to grow resistant bacteria”, he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Bacteria like E. coli and salmonella are already becoming resistant to antibiotics, Robinson said, increasing fears that these diseases will endanger humans.

The study by experts from Princeton, ILRI and the National Institutes of Health is the first to measure global antibiotic consumption by livestock.