Excessive use of antibiotics in poultry farms, a big threat to human health, says CDDEP study

The chicken on your plate may be a mine of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, a new study suggests. It blames indiscriminate use of antibiotics on the chicken for the high incidence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Researchers from the Centre for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy (CDDEP) have found that nearly two-thirds of the poultry and egg farms are using antibiotics to boost growth.

And these same farms are more than three times as likely to report multi-drug-resistant bacteria, as compared to farms that do not use antibiotics.

For the study, which was published in peer-reviewed journal

Environmental Health Perspective , the researchers tested about 1,500 samples from 530 birds at 18 poultry farms across six districts of Punjab.

Antimicrobial resistance

“Meat producing farms had twice the rates of antimicrobial resistance as compared to egg producing farms, as well as higher rates of multi-drug resistance,” the study noted.

The indiscriminate and extensive use of antimicrobials in animal feed poses a significant threat to human health, the study says, adding there are several direct and indirect pathways of human exposure to these resistant bacteria. Farm workers, in direct contact with the animals, are at the maximum risk. However, indirect gene transfer across bacterial species and release of pathogens into the environment are significant concerns as well.

Disconcertingly, the study also noted that some antibiotics, such as fluoroquinolones, banned for animal use in the US since as far back as 2005 because of their extensive use among humans, continue to be used in India.

“Fluoroquinolones were banned for veterinary use in poultry in the US in 2005 in response to numerous studies linking its use in treating respiratory diseases in poultry to the emergence and spread of fluoroquinolone resistance in humans and animals,” the study pointed out.

Similarly, the EU banned the use of antimicrobials for growth promotion in food animals in response to evidence suggesting growth promoters drove the emergence and spread of resistance in 2006.

The CDDEP study also found high incidence of resistant bacteria from the farms that use antibiotics. They detected 39 per cent resistance to ciprofloxacin (which is used to treat respiratory infections), and 86 per cent for nalidixic acid (used to treat urinary tract infections).