Abstract
The risk of antimicrobial agents used in food-producing animals on public health associated with antimicrobial resistance continues to be a current topic of discussion as related to animal and human public health. In the present review, resistance monitoring data, and risk assessment results of some important antimicrobial agents were cited to elucidate the possible association of antimicrobial use in food animals and antimicrobial resistance in humans. From the selected examples, it was apparent from reviewing the published scientific literature that the ban on use of some antimicrobial agents (e.g., avoparcin, fluoroquinolone, tetracyclines) did not change drug resistance patterns and did not mitigate the intended goal of minimizing antimicrobial resistance. The use of some antimicrobial agents (e.g., virginiamycin, macrolides, and cephalosporins) in food animals may have an impact on the antimicrobial resistance in humans, but it was largely depended on the pattern of drug usage in different geographical regions. The epidemiological characteristics of resistant bacteria were closely related to molecular mechanisms involved in the development, fitness, and transmission of antimicrobial resistance.
Highlights
Antimicrobial agents have been used in food animal production since the 1950s
The National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System (NARMS) report revealed that long-term use of virginiamycin for growth promotion was likely to result in the emergence of streptograminresistant Enterococcus which was present in 30–70% of poultry products purchased from supermarkets (NARMS, 2012)
Contrary to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC)/European Food Safety Authority (EFSA)/European Medicines Agency (EMA) JIACARA report, the United States of America (USA) risk assessment data showed that tylosin and tilmicosin in food animals did not result in a risk to public health in relationship to the development and dissemination of macrolide resistant Campylobacter (Hurd et al, 2004)
Summary
Antimicrobial agents have been used in food animal production since the 1950s. Antimicrobial agents have contributed significantly to the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases in food animals and some of them have played a very important role in the promotion of animal growth and feed efficiency (Dibner and Richards, 2005; Niewold, 2007). Human health consequences have been raised concerning whether the use of antimicrobial agents in food animals may minimize the effectiveness of the same classes of medically important antimicrobial agents to treat antimicrobial resistant infectious diseases in humans (Salisbury et al, 2002) In this respect, the administration of low doses (5–40 mg/kg.feed) of antimicrobial growthpromoters in animal feed were banned by Europe (EU) in 2006 to protect public health, and this. In 1993, isolation and frequency of vancomycinresistant Enterococci (VRE) from food-producing animals in Great British drew public health concern about the consequences of wide use of avoparcin as a growth promoter in animals. The most important concern is that VRE are present among farm animals and their potential to transfer resistance genes to vancomycin susceptible enterococci and other Gram— positive bacteria that may be transmitted via food products to humans. Some in vivo transfer studies indicated that vanA gene was located in transposon Tn1546 and may be TABLE 1 | Characteristics of glycopetide-resistant genes in Enterococci
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