Antibióticos no setor avícola: uma revisão sobre a resistência microbiana

Abstract

Since the first practical application of penicillin during World War II, the use of antibiotics has become an essential tool to treat infectious diseases and, after this event, many other drugs have been described, tested and used. However, the use of antimicrobials extends beyond the therapeutic treatment of animals and men, considering that, in some countries, these drugs are used in food producing animals with the objective of improving performance and reducing mortality. However, according to the World Health Organization, the use of antimicrobials in animal production should be controlled and restricted due to the risk of selecting resistant bacteria in different environments when these drugs are used indiscriminately. Therefore, the European Union prohibited the use of antibiotics as growth promoters in feed for production animals in 2006 as a precaution and this measure forced other countries, including Brazil, to adapt to this new demand in order to continue exporting products for this important economic bloc. Antimicrobial resistance may be coded by chromosomes or plasmids, which facilitates gene spreading. In addition, mechanisms of genetic interchange provide transmission from one bacterium to another, generating the occurrence of resistance to multiple antimicrobial drug classes, named multidrug resistance. This issue has been considered a major concern to the public health, since the transference of resistance to the human population by chicken meat is not clearly described. Therefore, this study reviewed the use of antibiotics in the poultry industry and, in order to do it so, information on the discovery and use of antimicrobials, mechanisms of action and resistance, as well as their impacts on the poultry industry were gathered. In addition, a lack in scientific literature has been observed in this study due to the low amount of papers addressing this theme in the poultry industry area.