A joint report published on Thursday 27 July by the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA), the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the European Centre for Disease Control (ECDC) has once again confirmed the link between consuming antibiotics and antimicrobial resistance.
This second edition of the Joint Interagency Antimicrobial Consumption and Resistance Analysis is based on data from 2013 to 2015. It shows that in 2014, the total average consumption of antimicrobials (AMC) stood at 124 milligrams of active substances per kilogram of estimated biomass and 152 mg/kg in food producing animals. In 18 of 28 countries included in the analysis, AMC was lower in animals than in humans; in two countries, AMC was similar and in the eight remaining countries AMC was higher or much higher in animals produced for food than in humans. These observations appear similar to those contained in the first report for 2015.
The 135-page report also shows that a class of antibiotics called polymyxins (which includes colistin) is used widely in the veterinary sector. It is also increasingly used in hospitals to treat multidrug-resistant infections. Other antibiotics are more often used in humans than in animals. These include third and fourth-generation cephalosporins.
The three agencies conclude that the impact resulting from the use of antibiotics on the increasing numbers of bacteria that resist antibiotics is worrying. In a press release, the European Commissioner for Health, Vytenis Andriukaitis, announced his new action plan for tackling antimicrobial resistance that has just come out (see EUROPE 11819). (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)