Antibiotics and super microbes, in our daily menu
Antimicrobial resistance is a major global threat of growing concern for human and animal health. It also has implications for both food security and the economic well-being of millions of agricultural households.
Antimicrobials are substances that fight microorganisms or prevent their appearance. Antimicrobial drugs are essential in the treatment of diseases and their use is crucial to protect human and animal health.
However, they are used improperly to treat and prevent diseases in livestock, fisheries and agricultural production, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Although the fight against antibiotic-resistant bacteria has progressed globally, a recent report points out that there is still a long way to curb the practices that spread the abuse of antimicrobial drugs leading to many of these preparations, and their sequels, directly to our tables.
The agency reports that around the world, up to 27 different types of antimicrobial are used in animals for human consumption. This increases the risk of spreading food contaminated with these drugs.
"These medicines supposedly prescribed by a veterinarian after having made an analysis of the case can make the specific recipe for this disease. That, yes it happens, fantastic, "said Dr. Juan Lubroth, head of animal health services at FAO.
"But surely there are farmers, ranchers, veterinarians who prescribe medications that are not appropriate for that infection.
This is how food can become contaminated and it reaches us as consumers, that we are seven billion in the world, a product that is not innocuous. "
The World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) estimates that only 89 countries have a mechanism to report the use of antimicrobial agents in animals. However, there is no standardized control to measure the practice globally.
Not all microbes are bad
Lubroth differentiated between the microbes that harm us and those that help us live.
"The natural flora and fauna that we carry inside represents a very important genetic quantity and because we have this we can digest the food we eat; we interact with a microscopic environment every hour, every minute, every second, "he explained.
"A lot of that flora and fauna are not pathogenic microbes, they are beneficial microbes. That's why we can digest and feed as we feed. "
In contrast, pathogenic microbes are the ones to be cautious of. When a drug prescribed by a doctor is taken, both the bad and the good microbes are eliminated, something that can seriously weaken our organism.
