A new EU report shows for the first time that farm animals account for about two thirds of all antibiotics used in 26 European countries.
The joint report by the European Food Safety Authority, the European Medicines Agency and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control showed that countries that use higher levels of some antibiotics in animals have higher levels of antibiotic resistance in certain bacteria from humans.
5,000 people died in England of antibiotic-resistant E. coli in 2013, and this report adds to the evidence that antibiotic-resistant E. coli in people are linked to overuse of antibiotics in farming.
Cóilín Nunan, Principal Scientific Adviser to the Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics, said: “This is a remarkable new report which reveals the true scale of antibiotic overuse in European farming. Despite worldwide attempts to protect antibiotics and ensure that they remain available and effective for human medicine, very little has changed. Most European countries, including the UK, continue to permit farmers to routinely use antibiotics in pig and poultry feed and drinking water for ‘disease prevention’.
“Attempts to limit farm antibiotic use have failed nearly everywhere, except in the five Nordic countries and the Netherlands, which have successfully banned or reduced routine preventative use too.”
The report also showed that countries with higher levels of resistance in farm animals to antibiotics that are critically important to human medicine have statistically significantly higher levels of resistance to these antibiotics in human E. coli blood-poisoning infections.
The findings on antibiotic resistance need to be interpreted with caution as most countries provided inadequate data. They are, however, consistent with previous scientific research which found that resistance in E. coli from food animals in 11 European countries was “highly correlated” with resistance in human E. coli blood-poisoning infections.
These statistical links are further strengthened by new genetic research published by Dutch scientists in December.
Using the most advanced scientific method available, whole-genome sequencing, the scientists provided evidence linking resistance to certain critically important antibiotics in human E. coli infections with the use of the antibiotics in pigs and poultry.
Cóilín Nunan said: “Evidence is now accumulating, both statistical and genetic, that the overuse of farm antibiotics is leading to more antibiotic resistance in human E. coli infections. The Chief Medical Officer says that 5,000 people in England died of antibiotic-resistant E. coli in 2013. That figure is set to continue increasing if no action is taken. The government and the European Commission must urgently put an end to all routine antibiotic use in animals’ feed and drinking water.”
Last September the European Commission published proposals to ban the preventative use of certain types of antibiotic feed additives.
However, the Commission’s proposals would not put an end to all routine preventative antibiotic use in feed and would put no new restrictions on antibiotic use in drinking water.
