New Delhi: After taking the concern of the studies done by CSE, which shows that over-use of antibiotics in poultry in chicken has led the growth of antibiotic resistance, the Indian Medical Association (IMA) has demanded an instant ban on the use of antibiotic in the poultry industry.
‘The IMA has echoed the recommendations given by CSE. Some of these include allowing antibiotic use only to treat sick birds, ban on use of antibiotics in the industry which are critical for humans, and the need to regulate availability of antibiotics and feed supplements,’ said a CSE statement.
‘It was agreed that states will start surveillance on the issue; the FSSAI has also agreed to review the regulatory gaps,’ the statement said.
According to the CSE Deputy General Director Chandra Bhushan, there is enough evidence of the strong linkage between antibiotic resistance and antibiotic misuse in food-producing animals such as chicken.
‘Now, the medical community and IMA have come up and strongly supported our viewpoint. It will help address the cause,’ he added.
‘CSE believes that this is first step in the right direction. The regulatory vacuum is the primary reason why the poultry industry is rampantly misusing antibiotics. CSE has started writing to various central and state government functionaries highlighting the concerns and the action that needs to be taken to address this major public health issue.’
The study of the CSE Pollution Monitoring Lab, which tested 70 chicken samples from the Delhi-NCR region for six commonly-used antibiotics – oxytetracycline, chlortetracycline, doxycycline, enrofloxacin, ciprofloxacin and neomycin, found their residues in the chicken samples.
What is antibiotic resistance in any organism?
In very simple and short, the ability of microorganism to continuously evolving and adapt to the changes in the environment is called antibiotic resistance. The ability which can kill them or limit their growth is called antimicrobial resistance. Those bacteria which become resistant cause infections and become untreatable and some developed resistances to multiple antibiotics are called multidrug resistant (MDR) bacteria or more commonly called superbugs.
