Superbugs a risk to people, animals and food, says EU
LONDON: Superbug bacteria found in people, animals and food across the European Union pose an “alarming” threat to public and animal health having evolved to resist widely used antibiotics, disease and safety experts warned on Wednesday.
A report on antimicrobial resistance in bacteria by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said some 25,000 people die from such superbugs in the European Union every year. “Antimicrobial resistance is an alarming threat putting human and animal health in danger,” said Vytenis Andriukaitis, the EU’s health and food safety commissioner.
“We have put substantial efforts to stop its rise, but this is not enough. We must be quicker, stronger and act on several fronts.”
Drug resistance is driven by the misuse and overuse of antibiotics, which encourages bacteria to evolve to survive and develop new ways of beating the medicines.
Wednesday’s report highlighted that in Salmonella bacteria — which can cause the common and serious food-borne infection Salmonellosis — multi-drug resistance is high across the EU. Mike Catchpole, the ECDC’s chief scientist, said he was particularly concerned that some common types of Salmonella in humans, such as monophasic Salmonella Typhimurium, are showing extremely high multi-drug resistance.
“Prudent use of antibiotics in human and veterinary medicine is extremely important,” he said.”We all have a responsibility to ensure that antibiotics keep working.”
Resistance to carbapenem antibiotics — usually the last remaining treatment option for patients infected with multi-drug resistant superbugs — was detected for the first time in animals and food, albeit at low levels, as part of EU-wide annual monitoring for the report.
It said very low levels of resistance were observed in E.coli bacteria found in pigs and in meat from pigs.
Resistance to colistin, another lastresort human antibiotic — was also found at very low levels in Salmonella and E.coli in pigs and cattle, the report said.
Marta Hugas, head of EFSA’s biological hazards and contaminants unit, noted geographic variations across the European Union, with countries in northern and western Europe generally having lower resistance levels than those in southern and eastern Europe and said this was most likely due to differences in the level of use and overuse of the medicines. PARIS: The French government on Tuesday ordered the slaughter of the last 600,000 ducks in a bird flu-hit southwest region at the forefront of the foie gras industry.
The cull will effectively wipe out production of foie gras in the Landes area that accounts for a quarter of the total French production of the controversial delicacy made from the livers of force-fed ducks and geese.
“We are going to have to move quickly in the slaughter of the ducks so that we can stabilise the whole area,” Agriculture Minister Stephane Le Foll said.
France is scrambling to stop the spread of the highly pathogenic H5N8 virus sweeping across Europe.
The virus was first spotted in wild geese in November and has spread rapidly through duck farms across the southwest.
“Authorities are facing a virus that spreads at speeds never seen before and with extremely short incubation periods,” Le Foll said.
Duck farmers have accused the government of being slow to respond at the start of the outbreak, helping it spread and increasing the number of birds now being slaughtered. — AFP