It was only a few days ago that we voiced our concerns in this column over the misuse and overuse of antibiotics in humans—in regards to a recent study, conducted by the IEDCR, which found that almost all clinically important and widely used antibiotics have lost their effectiveness by more than 50 percent. Now, it appears we are also developing antimicrobial resistance (AMR) through the food we consume. A study by the Bangladesh Livestock Research Institute (BLRI) found three serotypes of salmonella bacteria that were resistant to 17 antibiotics in percentages ranging between 6.7 to 100 percent, in chicken samples collected from 29 wet markets in Dhaka between February and December 2019. In humans, salmonella is one of the four key global causes of diarrheal diseases, according to the WHO.

The issue here is that farmers are not only feeding antibiotics to sick poultry animals but, as another icddr,b study found, more than half the farmers were found to have administered antibiotics on day-old chicks without reason. Moreover, farmers rationalise their use of antibiotics on healthy chickens, saying that it is to keep illnesses from spreading within the flock. What is most concerning is that farmers use these antibiotics on animals on the recommendations of both veterinarian doctors and feed dealers, the latter of whom are not in any way qualified to prescribe such medicines. Experts say that the increasing ineffectiveness of antibiotics, or AMR, is a major public health threat and will eventually make it impossible to treat many previously treatable bacteria, viruses and parasites. Not only will this increase the number of sick patients and cause deaths—it will also put more pressure on our already burdened healthcare system, to say nothing of how it will adversely impact the economy.

What is necessary now is a collective effort from the government and from the healthcare sector. It is high time to put a stop to the arbitrary use of antibiotics, which is done in major hospitals to smaller clinics, for humans and animals alike. Not only does this ineffectiveness of antibiotics affect health, it also increases costs on multiple fronts. Be it through consumption or other ways such as poor hygiene, AMR can spread across species and affect all. The only way to reduce it now would be to raise awareness among the general public and to strictly monitor the prescription and administration of antibiotics in humans and animals.