If regulatory authorities do not step in, 4,796 tons of antibiotics will be fed to animals reared for food by 2030, up 82 per cent, as per the report published in the journal Science. Animals reared for food were fed 2,633 tons of antibiotics in 2013.
However, two basic interventions could change that: A cap on the amount of antibiotics that can be administered to a food animal and a price hike in veterinary antibiotics to dissuade excessive use.
These steps could result in India using 61 per cent less antibiotics in food animals. It could also avert the health disaster expected from the widespread malpractice of using antibiotics as growth promoters.
“The [expected] hike [in antibiotic use] reflects the growing consumption of meat in India, and in particular, meat from animals administered antibiotics as growth promoters,” said Ramanan Laxminarayan, director of the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy (CCDEP) and co-author of the study.
In rural India, the consumption of mutton, beef, pork and chicken has more than doubled between 2004 and 2011. It has gone up from 0.13 kg per capita per month to 0.27 kg, according to the 61st and 68th rounds of National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) data. Urban India has seen a spike from 0.22 kg to 0.39 kg in the same period.
Food animals are given small doses of antibiotics mixed with their feed to promote growth and prevent disease. This allows farmers to save on nutrition and hygiene but has serious long term consequences for human health.
Why this antibiotic shouldn’t become the poultry farm favourite
In Punjab, two-thirds of farmers of poultry–the most commonly consumed meat in India–use antibiotics for growth promotion, according to another recent study by Laxminarayan and others, as IndiaSpend reported in August 2017.
Tetracyclines and fluoroquinolones–antibiotics commonly used to treat cholera, malaria, respiratory and urinary tract infections in humans–were found to be the most commonly used antimicrobials.
Of all the medicines used in livestock in India, quinolones are projected to see the biggest increase in use, 243 per cent through to 2030, according to the new study.
“That an antibiotic commonly used in humans is projected to see the biggest increase in animal use is of great concern,” said Laxminarayan. “The use in animals of ciprofloxacin, a valuable oral broad-spectrum antibiotic, should be stopped at the earliest. Such use (of ciprofloxacin) has been discontinued in the US.”
“Levels of multidrug-resistance were close to 90% in biological samples obtained from animals on those farms,” he said. “The spread of multidrug-resistant bacteria would mean that many more people could die from common infectious diseases.”
Indian food authorities are slow to respond to the threat
Antibiotics are freely and cheaply available in India. This is the biggest reason for the reckless use of antimicrobials as growth promoters in poultry farms.
How can this be changed?
“Agencies with the regulatory authority—such as the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization and the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India—should move quickly in this direction to avoid further degradation of antibiotic effectiveness,” said Laxminarayan.
In June 2017, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) brought out a draft notification prescribing residual limits for antibiotics, veterinary drugs and pharmacologically active substances in meat, poultry, eggs and milk. This came six years after the authority prescribed antibiotic residual limits for fish and fishery products and honey.
“Antimicrobial resistance is an evolving area, we have been studying the implications of the use of antibiotics as growth promoters in food animals in India and are willing to address this concern,” Pawan Kumar Agarwal, CEO of the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India, told IndiaSpend. He estimated that it would take another 90 to 120 days for the regulation to be introduced.
Antibiotics used to cut costs on sanitation, diet
By specifying the limits of permissible antibiotic residue in food animals, the FSSAI regulation, when it is framed, will indirectly make it unlawful to use the drugs beyond a certain limit.
The new study proposes clearly capping the use of antibiotics in food animals to a specified limit and increasing the prices of veterinary antibiotics to dissuade use.
In the 18 farms that Laxminarayan’s team visited during the first study, it was found that large flocks, more than 50,000 birds, were kept in confined areas lacking proper sanitation.
Organic nurturing results in higher costs, price
To understand why poultry farmers use antibiotics as cheap and easily accessible growth boosters, consider the case of an agro enterprise that has adopted organic practices.
At Kansal & Kansal Agro Farms in Haryana, chicken feed is sourced only from pesticide-free farms and then mixed with herbs. The chickens are kept in a partially temperature controlled environment. The farm also invests in research to improve farming practices.
How to cut antibiotic misuse by more than half
High-income countries with highly productive livestock sectors—such as Denmark, Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands—use antibiotics sparingly. The limit is less than 50 milligrams of antibiotics per population corrective unit (mg/PCU), a measurement unit developed by the European Medicines Agency to monitor antibiotic use and sales across Europe.
The new study suggests capping the use of antibiotics in farm animals at 50 mg/PCU globally. If India were to adopt this limit, antibiotic use in food animals in the country would decline by 15%, or 736 tons through to 2030.
Limiting meat intake may not help
Limiting meat intake to the equivalent of one fast-food burger, roughly 40 grams per person per day globally—or 14.6 kg per person per annum—is the third intervention proposed by the new study.
Globally, limited meat intake could help reduce the global consumption of antibiotics for food animals by 66%. However, this intervention is not needed in India, where the per capita consumption of meat is below 5 kg per capita per annum.
For comparison, the per capita annual consumption of meat in China is 50 kg, well above the recommended 14.6 kg.
(Bahri is a freelance writer and editor based in Mount Abu, Rajasthan.)
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