While antibiotics are good, experts have revealed that misuse by farmers especially adding them to animal feeds can lead to a bigger problem, such as antimicrobial resistance. (AMR).
“Antibiotics are usually prescribed with a limitation. The mysteries which have happened in the animal industry are that people have been mixing antibiotics in the chicken feeds all the time from the day they’re born,” Dr. Anna Rose Ademun Okurut, Commissioner Animal Health- Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industries and Fisheries explained during a media cafe on Tuesday.
This, she said was reason the ministry banned antibiotics use in animal feeds as an additive.
700,000 people are estimated to die every year around the world, from formerly treatable infections caused by bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites that have developed resistance to antimicrobial drugs.
Preliminary findings from an ongoing study titled; ‘Antimicrobial Resistance in Poultry Production Chains in Soroti and Wakiso’ show that the farmers in Wakiso are complaining of drugs not working. In case of a cough or flu, the required treatment is finished before the poultry has recovered.
Dr. Irene Mbatidde, from the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) noted that through the four-year study, they aim at increasing awareness of the people that work in the poultry sector about the drugs used in treating infections in poultry.
“For example, you’re supposed to have a footpath, where people step in and don’t bring diseases, restricted access of outsiders into your farm, feeding animals on a balanced diet to prevent disease. When you fail to put in place these measures, that’s when the farmers are opting to use antibiotics, instead to help their animals to be able to fight disease,” she explained.
