3.1.1 Animal health and food production
As explained in Section 1, antimicrobials are used in animals to control pathogens that cause disease, and therefore production losses. Any use of antimicrobials creates selection pressure, leading to dominance of resistant bacteria. Antimicrobials are less effective when resistant bacteria dominate, causing higher morbidity and mortality in animals due to untreatable bacterial infections. Production losses and expenditure on managing resistant infections in animals affect the livelihoods of farmers and other stakeholders in food production systems (Rushton, 2015).
AMR in animal pathogens can affect food supply by reducing the numbers of animals reaching slaughter or harvest weight. This reduced availability can lead to increased prices for animal products, putting them beyond the reach of the poorest people. An inability to access these nutritionally valuable but more expensive foods could contribute to poor nutritional health in affected people, and this is expected to particularly impact LMICs. For more details of the links between AMR in animal pathogens and food safety and security, and also the balance between benefits and adverse effects of AMU in animals, we strongly encourage you to read ‘Anti-microbial use in animals: how to assess the trade-offs’ (Rushton, 2015).
3.1 The impact of AMR