Antimicrobial Resistance: A Menace to Food Chain

Food animals including poultry are the important reservoirs of human enteric pathogens. Moreover, it is observed that many human infections are associated with consumption of food products of animal origin. In fact, there is a chance of indirect transmission of commensal and opportunistic bacteria of Enterobacteriaceae group present in poultry and pig gut to human through the food chain. Antimicrobials are often used in food animals for their treatment and prevention of diseases besides they are used as a growth promoter. The commensal bacteria, present in the livestocks are challenged by antimicrobial agents; thereby develop their survival strategies through mutations and adaptations. Thus antimicrobial resistance (AMR) emerges from the use of antimicrobials in animals that subsequently causes transfer of resistance genes and bacteria among animals/animal products entering in the food web. Potential routes of entry of bacteria having AMR property in different animal rearing systems, viz. broiler, kuroiler and indigenous poultry, duck, pig, goat, buffalo and cattle have been investigated at local levels in West Bengal, an eastern state of India. Evidence strongly suggests that besides conventional source of antibiotics for therapeutic intervention, use of antibiotic growth promoter (AGP) at sub-therapeutic doses might be an additional source of generation of AMR in backyard system, a menace to food chain.