Study spotlights India’s ‘intense’ veterinary antimicrobial use
The Hindu
It was estimated to be 43% higher than the global average in 2020 itself, and is expected to be 40% more than the average in 2030.
The ‘intensity’ with which India administers antimicrobial drugs in food-producing animals is much higher than the world average and is expected to stay that way by the end of this decade, a new modelling study has found.
The projection bodes ill for India’s reputation as the site of “one of the world’s highest rates of resistance to antimicrobial drugs … both in humans and food animals,” partly due to the “injudicious use of antimicrobials”, according to an article in the Indian Journal of Medical Research.
The intensity of antimicrobial usage (AMU) – the number of milligrams administered per kilogram of meat – worldwide is expected to increase by 7.9%. But India’s AMU intensity was estimated to be 43% higher than the global average in 2020 itself, and is expected to be 40% more than the average in 2030.
The study’s paper was published on February 1 in the journal PLoS Global Public Health.
Scientists developed antimicrobial drugs to fight infections in people and animals – but by 2019, “73% of all antimicrobials sold on Earth [were] used in animals raised for food,” per a 2019 study.
The irrational use of these drugs by people and in parts of the poultry industry, to increase productivity, gave rise to antimicrobial resistance (AMR): certain classes of infection-causing bacteria began evading the effects of these drugs, while researchers struggled to develop more potent alternatives.
Today, AMR is considered to be one of the world’s major health crises.