22
behavior and attitude towards responsible and recommended usage of prescribed
antibiotics. They can also educate individuals and community about the general
rules of hygiene, which can bring drastic decrease in the load of infectious diseases.
They can be nodal points to prevent panic and guide responsible behavior of public
during disease outbreaks and safe disposal of carcasses, which have died due to
zoonotic diseases. All these steps, will aid in robust design of mitigation and preventive policies against existing and prospective issues of resistant humans pathogens.
The issues and identifiable terms relevant to antimicrobial resistance are used in
different contexts in different domains related to public health, animal health, agricultural systems and human health. Antibiotics and their degradation products are
not considered a part of antibiotic resistance, but are largely responsible for driving
antibiotic resistance (Subbiah et al. 2016). Natural resistance and co-selection for
resistance against heavy metals, detergents, nutrient loss/enrichment further makes
the situation complex and mere reliability on few factors cannot provide correct
picture (Franklin et al. 2016). Antibiotics might also be involved in acting as carbon
source and elicitors for expression of different genes in microbes including motility,
biofilm formation and stress response (Romero et al. 2011). The role of presence of
high level of antibiotics is also sometimes not directly associated with high number
of antibiotic resistant bacteria (Jechalke et al. 2015). All these factors can trivialize
the strategies proposed for dealing with antibiotics in agriculture, and encourage
ambiguity in behavior towards usage and response to antibiotics usage.
One striking example is the remarkable difference in the regulations on usage of
advanced antibiotics such as Carbapenems and Colistin in Agriculture systems,
which are otherwise reserved for terminal level infection treatment in humans
(Pereko et al. 2016). The estimated risks level due to resistant pathogens (such as
methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus) can still be different for veterinarians
and physicians and thus could have different priorities (and seriousness) in dealing
with it. Also, there are different approaches of antibiotic prescribers when dealing
with humans (focused on individual) and animals (focused on animal herds and collective protection). Further, the human-animal-environment interactions are largely
ignored by general healthcare professionals and any diseases or altercations are
dealt with separately in humans, animals and the environment. In many developing
countries, hunting and intake of ‘bush meat’ is common to supplement food and has
been linked with many humans infections including Ebola (Peterson 2003). Owing
to low vaccination and lack of any veterinary management capacities, these factors
pose frequent risks to humans and demands cross-disciplinary cooperation. These
issue led the WHO (program on neglected tropical diseases) to adopt One Health
model and foster collaborations with United Nations Food and Agricultural
Organization (UN-FAO), to publish recommendations for integrative strategies and
policies to deal with Africa-endemic diseases such as echinococcosis, rabies, bovine
tuberculosis and brucellosis (Aidara-Kane et al. 2018). Similar medical-veterinary
collaborative efforts have been initiated between UN-FAO and WHO for dealing
with threat of avian influenza variants (influenza virus A) to humans (http://www.
offlu.net/). The economic effects of regulating the usage of preventive antimicrobials in agriculture due to perceived threat to humans may be wrongly assessed.
K. S. Singh et al.
behavior and attitude towards responsible and recommended usage of prescribed
antibiotics. They can also educate individuals and community about the general
rules of hygiene, which can bring drastic decrease in the load of infectious diseases.
They can be nodal points to prevent panic and guide responsible behavior of public
during disease outbreaks and safe disposal of carcasses, which have died due to
zoonotic diseases. All these steps, will aid in robust design of mitigation and preventive policies against existing and prospective issues of resistant humans pathogens.
The issues and identifiable terms relevant to antimicrobial resistance are used in
different contexts in different domains related to public health, animal health, agricultural systems and human health. Antibiotics and their degradation products are
not considered a part of antibiotic resistance, but are largely responsible for driving
antibiotic resistance (Subbiah et al. 2016). Natural resistance and co-selection for
resistance against heavy metals, detergents, nutrient loss/enrichment further makes
the situation complex and mere reliability on few factors cannot provide correct
picture (Franklin et al. 2016). Antibiotics might also be involved in acting as carbon
source and elicitors for expression of different genes in microbes including motility,
biofilm formation and stress response (Romero et al. 2011). The role of presence of
high level of antibiotics is also sometimes not directly associated with high number
of antibiotic resistant bacteria (Jechalke et al. 2015). All these factors can trivialize
the strategies proposed for dealing with antibiotics in agriculture, and encourage
ambiguity in behavior towards usage and response to antibiotics usage.
One striking example is the remarkable difference in the regulations on usage of
advanced antibiotics such as Carbapenems and Colistin in Agriculture systems,
which are otherwise reserved for terminal level infection treatment in humans
(Pereko et al. 2016). The estimated risks level due to resistant pathogens (such as
methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus) can still be different for veterinarians
and physicians and thus could have different priorities (and seriousness) in dealing
with it. Also, there are different approaches of antibiotic prescribers when dealing
with humans (focused on individual) and animals (focused on animal herds and collective protection). Further, the human-animal-environment interactions are largely
ignored by general healthcare professionals and any diseases or altercations are
dealt with separately in humans, animals and the environment. In many developing
countries, hunting and intake of ‘bush meat’ is common to supplement food and has
been linked with many humans infections including Ebola (Peterson 2003). Owing
to low vaccination and lack of any veterinary management capacities, these factors
pose frequent risks to humans and demands cross-disciplinary cooperation. These
issue led the WHO (program on neglected tropical diseases) to adopt One Health
model and foster collaborations with United Nations Food and Agricultural
Organization (UN-FAO), to publish recommendations for integrative strategies and
policies to deal with Africa-endemic diseases such as echinococcosis, rabies, bovine
tuberculosis and brucellosis (Aidara-Kane et al. 2018). Similar medical-veterinary
collaborative efforts have been initiated between UN-FAO and WHO for dealing
with threat of avian influenza variants (influenza virus A) to humans (http://www.
offlu.net/). The economic effects of regulating the usage of preventive antimicrobials in agriculture due to perceived threat to humans may be wrongly assessed.
K. S. Singh et al.