‘Superbug risk’ of eating undercooked meat due to antibiotics in animals

Countries need to come together and agree to restrict or even ban the use in animals of antibiotics that are important for humans, it adds.

If we eat it raw or undercooked, there is a risk – albeit small – that we might catch these hard-to-treat infections and become ill.

Some last-resort antibiotics for humans are being used extensively in animals, with no replacements as of yet on the way, warns the document.

The review said the rise of the drugs in farming is increasing the growth of drug-resistant strains, which could be passed from animals to humans.

However, it is hard to empirically and accurately measure the global use of antibiotics in agriculture as a result of poor surveillance and data collection.

Prof Laura Piddock, Professor of Microbiology, University of Birmingham, said: “Over the last 25 years, academics have repeatedly called for a reduction in global antimicrobial use in animals reared for food production”.

“Just as there is a clear correlation between rising levels of human use of antibiotics and growing resistance… the same is essentially true in agriculture”, says the document.

Farming industry practices were to blame for the threat because they were injecting animals full of antibiotics. Weak, susceptible bacteria die off, while the antibiotic-resistant bacteria thrive.

The review said it should be for individual countries to decide how best to achieve the targets, which must go alongside restrictions on the use of antibiotics important for humans. Therefore it stands to reason that numerous antimicrobials used to treat these infectious diseases are similar. Subway said it would limit the use of antibiotics in meat.

Some farmers over use antibiotics to ward off infections within an entire flock or herd and sometimes just to help animals gain weight, said The Guardian.

“As we’ve highlighted, most of the scientific research provides evidence to support curtailing antibiotic use in agriculture, it’s time for policy makers to act on this”.

“Both uses are particularly prevalent in intensive agriculture, where animals are kept in confined conditions”, the report said. “European and national animal welfare legislation requires farmers to ensure their livestock receive appropriate treatment without delay, and the veterinary surgeons who prescribe antibiotics are committed to making animal health and welfare their first concern, while prescribing responsibly”. They recommended that countries start by reducing levels to those used in Denmark, which uses an average of less than 50mg of antibiotics per year per kilogram of livestock in the country.

“I find it staggering that in many countries most of the consumption of antibiotics is in animals, rather than humans”, he said.

“People pay attention to the excessive use of antibiotics in the medical field, but are not as conscious about the use of them in food”, Wong said. “There remain too many knowledge gaps regarding patterns of antimicrobial use in agriculture and release during manufacturing, and what this means for resistance and, ultimately, human health”.