WHO calls for urgent restrictions on use of antibiotics in livestock
19/11/2015
A new study published in medical journal The Lancet gives details of mcr-1 cropping up in people and in pigs in China and says there is “alarming potential” for the gene to spread to other species and to other parts of the world.
In response, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has called for use of “last-resort” antibiotics such as colistin to be restricted and for all “non-necessary” use of them to end. It has said it is working with United Nations agencies the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) to address the question of overuse of antibiotics, including colistin, as growth-promoters in the livestock industry. An action plan is in place to improve what WHO has called the stewardship of prevention of infection in animals.
Speaking to the BBC on November 19, Dr Liz Tayler, from WHO’s secretariat for antimicrobial resistance, said: “I think this is extremely serious. Global spread [of resistance to colistin] is likely. The more we use antibiotics, the more resistance will develop, and if we abuse them, it will happen much more quickly. We estimate that about two-thirds of antibiotics are used in animals, and the bulk of those are not for sick animals but as growth-promoters.”
Image, courtesy of OIE, shows a cattle immunisation programme in Cambodia.
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