EU and Member State policies are not ambitious enough to meet the EU's target of halving the use of antibiotics in livestock by 2030, according to activists. They warn that without sufficient action, people will also be at risk from antimicrobial resistance.
The overuse of antibiotics in recent years - not only in humans but also in animal healthcare - has led some bacteria to develop antimicrobial resistance (AMR), which means that antibiotics become less effective against infections.
The global pandemic COVID-19 «has again shown that the progressive development of antimicrobial resistance is a huge risk», said Sascha Müller-Kränner, Director of the NGO Environmental Action Germany, at a recent event.
The European Commission has already identified the fight against AMR as a priority. In its flagship food policy, the Farm to Plate Strategy, it has set a target to halve sales of antimicrobials in the EU for farmed animals by 2030.
This is «a good goal, an ambitious goal - achieving it would be our wish,» said Reinhild Benning, campaigner for agriculture and food at Environmental Action Germany. «But it's not that easy,» she added. Recent studies, Benning warned, predict an increase in antibiotic use in Europe of almost 7% by 2030, due to increased use in livestock farming.
An uninteresting list?;
As a means to reduce AMP in animals, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) recently submitted a list of antimicrobials that should be reserved for human use only. The Commission has supported the Agency's recommendations. While welcoming the step to establish such a list, Benning said that the EMA's recommendations do not go far enough.
«In this list, I'm missing the human medicine angle and the environmental medicine angle,» he said. He added that the list was not compiled with the so-called «One Health» approach in mind, i.e. the idea of an integrated approach to human, animal and environmental health.
Benning called for the list of antimicrobials to be expanded to include those recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) but not adopted by the EMA.
However, not everyone shares the activists« view. »We believe there is a high level of ambition in EU policy actions to reduce the use of antibiotics in animal husbandry," Roxane Feller, secretary general of AnimalhealthEurope, an organisation representing the animal pharmaceutical industry, told EURACTIV.
She pointed out that a recent report by the EU's medicines agency (EMA) had already found an overall reduction of 42% in veterinary antibiotic sales between 2011 and 2020.
Feller also added that her organisation would «accept the scientific advice of the EMA» when it comes to antibiotics for human use, adding that this is «in line with the EU's One Health approach to tackling the challenge of antimicrobial resistance«.
Reduction of the need to use
Meanwhile, the question remains how and to what extent farms can reduce the use of antimicrobials and to what extent they are necessary for animal health. «Working completely without antibiotic treatment - this is important to emphasise - is not possible,» German Agriculture Ministry official Marcus Schick told an event.
In the case of «bacterial infections that lead to pain, suffering and damage to animals», they must be treated, he argued. He added that such diseases could also threaten human health through food produced from animals.
«We prefer to focus on reducing the need to use antibiotics rather than just looking at reducing use,» Feller argued. At the same time, as there are currently no alternatives to treat bacterial infections, antibiotics «will remain essential (...) to protect animal health and welfare», he added.
Benning, meanwhile, called for a more structural approach, arguing that a third of the global increase in antibiotic use is due to the transition from rural to industrial agriculture, where «antibiotics are often treated as a production input». To effectively reduce antimicrobial use, the agricultural system must therefore change, he concluded.
By Julia Dahm, EURACTIV.com, Translated by Georgia Evangelia Karagianni
