Farms are the ideal incubator for antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Microorganisms resistant to antibiotics are born within them and can represent a serious risk to human health. The cause of the birth of superbugs is due to the abuse of drugs administered to animals on farms.
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- farms are the ideal incubator for super antibiotic resistant bacteria. Microorganisms resistant to antibiotics are born within them, capable of representing a serious risk to human health. The cause of the birth of superbugs is due to thedrug abuse administered to animals on farms.
Confirmation of the correlation between antibiotic-resistant bacteria and drug abuse given to farm animals comes from one study conducted in China by the Michigan State University. US researchers set out to search for genes that make the bacteria resistant to antibiotics inside pig farms present in China.
Their presence has been sought and identified in the soil, in compost and manure present in three large pig farms in the eastern nation. The concentration of the same was judged to be enormously higher than the norm: from 192 to 28 thousand times greater than what one would have expected to detect.
The genes identified by the experts make it possible to make the bacteria resistant to the most commonly used antibiotics and therefore completely immune to the action of these medicines. A risk of contamination not to underestimate. In fact, they can reach rivers and contaminate the aquifers, or they can be used in agriculture, through manure and compost, and therefore spread widely in the environment, increasing the risk of undermining the effectiveness of the antibiotic therapies used by humans, according to experts' statements.
China is regarded as the largest producer and consumer of antibiotics and until now their animal abuse would have been underestimated. According to the study conducted in China, both that nation and many other countries around the world do not take into account the serious impact of the use and abuse of antibiotics on the environment, animals and humans.
Compared to the United States, China would use four times more antibiotics for veterinary purposes. As a result, such drugs would come poorly absorbed by animals and their residues would end up in manure, which, in turn, will be used as fertilizer, leading to the spread of genes resistant to these drugs in the environment.
Such genes have been defined by experts as highly mobile, that is, capable of transferring to other bacteria, which they could be cause of human diseases. The situation was described as highly worrying, since in the case of infections in humans caused by bacteria that have become resistant to antibiotics, they could not be cured with such drugs.
The research conducted by US experts has focused on China, but reflects a situation present in various countries of the world. We would therefore expect better regulation in the future regarding the use of antibiotics in farms, in which, in addition to undergoing a drug administration in excess, animals are forced to spend their own existence in bad conditions, deprived of the space that would be necessary for them to live according to nature.
Marta Albè
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