The State of Animal Health & Antibiotic Resistance
An animal health industry report on global trends in antibiotic use found that collective action has led to the increased use of vaccines and diagnostics, improved cooperation across the value chain, and better optimization of antibiotic use.
Animals Need Fewer Antibiotics
Use and sales of antibiotics in animals are falling across the world as adoption of preventative tools like vaccines grows, reducing the risk of illness and the need for treatment.
Resistance in Animals Remains Low
Monitoring of bacterial infections in animals shows that resistance to critically important antibiotics, in general, remains low and these medicines remain highly effective in animals.
Risk of AMR Transfer From Animals Remains Low
Animals and food-borne illness are a risk for AMR transfer, but research shows that the primary source of AMR-resistant infections in people remains other people.
Most Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria in People Do Not Come From Livestock
Livestock can share antibiotic-resistant bacteria with people through food-borne illness or direct contact with animals. However, research indicates the majority of antibiotic-resistant bacteria are transferred through person-to-person contact, particularly in healthcare settings.
Taken together, these results show how responsible use efforts in animals are meeting the objectives of the WHO Global Action Plan on AMR, which focuses on prevention and optimizing use, not simply on reductions. Yet, while animal health has taken action, resistance and antibiotic use in humans has risen, which is why a One Health approach is crucial.
Science & Data are Key
Science-driven data on antibiotic use informs and promotes judicious practices
The animal health industry believes in data. It’s important for public agencies to collect science-driven data on the use of antibiotics, and there must be a a stated scientific purpose for data collection to ensure the findings can be used to answer scientific questions. Good data sets should also help producers and veterinarians become more careful users of antibiotics.
Therefore, effective antibiotic data collection should cover all uses of antibiotics, yet currently, no single data set exists that compares antibiotic use levels across all sectors.
FDA, as required by law, collects information from companies on the amount of antibiotics sold each year for use in food producing animals. Sales and use are not the same, and the annual report issued by FDA lists cautions in interpreting the data. For example, it is inappropriate to compare the volume of animal sales to human sales or use due to the number of humans in the U.S. (333 million) versus the number of food animals (approx. 10 billion) and the differences in physical characteristics of humans and animals.
Agriculture Doesn’t Pose the Greatest Risk to Humans
Risk of antibiotic resistance is mostly due to human healthcare use
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), overuse and misuse of antibiotics in all settings allows the development of resistant bacteria. While all uses of antibiotics can exert selection pressure for resistant organisms, research shows the risk of antibiotic use in animals is extremely low compared to uses in human healthcare settings.
The CDC’s 2019 Antibiotic Resistance Threats in the U.S. report details the most urgent bacterial resistance threats faced by doctors in human healthcare settings. Most are pathogens that don’t occur in animals, which indicates that using antibiotics in animals does not affect the prevalence of resistance in humans. Examples of serious antibiotic resistance threats that cannot be associated with animals:
- One of the bacterial threats listed as “urgent” is C. difficile which causes life-threatening diarrhea. These infections mostly occur in people who have had both recent medical care and antibiotics. Often, C. difficileinfections occur in hospitalized or recently hospitalized patients. This bacterium does not occur in animals.
- Streptococcus pneumoniae ( pneumoniae, or pneumococcus) is a leading cause of bacterial pneumonia and meningitis in the United States. It also is a major cause of bloodstream infections and ear and sinus infections.
Two antibiotic resistant threats, Campylobacter and Salmonella, are associated with farm animals. These bacteria commonly reside in the gut of animals, and they can make people sick if they are consumed in raw or undercooked meat. Because these two bacteria can reside in animals, they are the focus of attention and interventions by the animal health industry, producers, and veterinarians.
More research is needed to fully understand the relationship between drug resistant bacteria in people and animals. However, until then, we must prioritize responsible use and actions with measurable results in both animals and people.