Even as India draws flak for being the antibiotics capital of the world, a new study, published in international journal, Environmental Health Perspectives, has found high levels of antibiotic-resistant pathogens in chickens raised for both meat and eggs on farms in Punjab.
Random tests on 18 poultry farms raising about 50,000 birds each in the Northen State found that two-thirds of fowl harboured bacteria that produce special enzymes, known as extended-spectrum beta-lactamase, or ESBl, that destroy most penicillin- and cephalosporin-based antibiotics, said the researchers from the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy (CDDEP).
"This study has serious implications, not only for India but globally," said study author and CDDEP Director Ramanan laxminarayan. "Overuse of antibiotics in animal farms endangers all of us. We must remove antibiotics from the human food chain, except to treat sick animals, or face the increasingly real prospect of a post-antibiotic world."
Although the researchers found reservoirs of resistance across both types of farms, meat farms had twice the rates of antimicrobial resistance that egg-producing farms had, as well as higher rates of multidrug resistance.
Across the board, the CDDEP researchers found high levels of multidrug resistance, ranging from 39 percent for ciprofloxacin, used to treat endocarditis, gastroenteritis, cellulitis and respiratory tract infections, and other infections, to 86 percent for nalidixic acid, a common treatment for urinary tract infections.
Additional testing revealed presence of certain enzymes that confer drug resistance to medications used, for example, to treat E. coli, bacterial pneumonia, and other infections. Almost 60 percent of E. coli isolates analyzed contained these enzymes, said the study published recently. Our findings suggest that antimicrobial use for growth promotion promoted the development of reservoirs of highly resistant bacteria on the studied farms, with potentially serious implications for human health," the researchers said. Farmhands who handle the birds often wear open-toe shoes, providing "a conduit of entry for resistant bacteria and resistance genes into the community and hospitals, where further person-to-person transmission is possible," they said. India recently prepared a national action plan on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) envisaging a five-pronged strategy besides reducing infection through prevention and control to tackle the health crisis.