3.2 Antimicrobial residues
Although the implications of antimicrobial residues in the environment are not fully understood, they can affect human (and animal) health by causing allergic reactions and changes to human or animal intestinal flora. Antimicrobial residues also influence the emergence and subsequent spread of resistant bacteria by acting as a selection pressure.
In food production, the presence of residues in animal food products destined for export can lead to products being rejected with resulting economic impact.
Activity 6: The impact of AMR in your sector
Look again at the animal production system that you chose in Activity 2 and your diagram showing exposure pathways in Figure 11.
Can you identify the potential consequences of AMR in animal systems for public health, animal health, food production and environment in your chosen system? Think about:
- animal health and welfare, and food production
- human health
- the environment.
Discussion
Your examples will be specific to your setting, but the ideas below are based on the model scenario we provided in the previous section of commercial broiler and tilapia:
- Animal health and welfare, and food production: Higher morbidity and mortality due to resistant infections in poultry and fish that cannot be treated with antimicrobials would lead to lower productivity, higher expenditure in alternative measures to tackle bacterial infections and economic losses for the farmers.
- Human health: Consumers of food products containing resistant bacteria, people exposed to water sources or food chain workers could be infected with resistant zoonotic bacteria and need to undergo treatment.
- Environment: If the waste and water from the food chain operations are not treated, they would go into the environment, contaminating watercourses. There could be loss of diversity due to the antimicrobial residues that select for resistant bacteria.
3.1.3 Environmental impact of AMR
