(India) Antibiotic shots, being used at will to make chickens fatter, will be regularized soon. For the first time, National Policy for Containment of Antimicrobial Resistance has put a cap on how much antibiotics can be pumped into seafood or poultry products.
The policy has named common antibiotics like tetracycline, oxytetracycline, trimethoprim and oxolinic acid, and clearly mentioned it "shall not exceed the prescribed tolerance limit". The use of over 20 antibiotics or pharmacologically active substances has been prohibited in seafood and poultry products.
Professor Randeep Guleria from AIIMS, a part of the task force, said, "Antibiotics are used by farmers to prevent infection in fish or poultry. However, till now there was no limitation. We didn't want such fish or meat to enter the food chain and lead to the emergence of antibiotic resistance in humans who eat it. That's why we have fixed limits."
Dr Ranjit Roychoudhury, a task force member and one of India's best known clinical pharmacologists, added, "poultry are fattened and fish are made bigger by pumping antibiotics and hormones for better price. Eating such products on a regular basis can cause antibiotic resistance in humans."
India is also putting in place a "bad bug house" — a national repository of bacterial strains that will house drug-resistant strains, including molecular components like DNA / plasmids.
Dr Roychoudhury added, "We don't have a national repository of standard bacterial strains required for quality control or comparison when new bugs appear. Institute of Microbial technology (IMTECH), Chandigarh, has the requisite infrastructure and expertise."
Dr Guleria said, "Once we have a national repository, we can carry out genetic studies on strains, know where they came from, what their weaknesses are and how they can be eliminated."
According to the policy, about 80% of antibiotics are used in the community and the rest are used in hospitals. It is estimated that 20% – 50% of all antibiotics use in India is inappropriate, resulting in an increased risk of adverse side-effects, higher costs of therapy and higher rate of antimicrobial resistance of community pathogen. The policy has also called for the setting up of a national technical advisory group on development of newer antimicrobials.
Source: The Times of India
