Evidence mounts linking antibiotic use with antibiotic resistance

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), the European Medicines Agency, and the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) have released a report that presents new data on antibiotic consumption and antibiotic resistance and reflects improved surveillance across Europe. Experts highlight that there are still important differences across the European Union in the use of antibiotics in animals and humans. Cutting their unnecessary use will have an impact on the occurrence of resistance.

“To contain antibiotic resistance, we need to fight on three fronts at the same time: human, animal, and the environment,” said Vytenis Andriukaitis, European commissioner for health and food safety. “This is exactly what we are trying to achieve in the EU and globally with our recently launched EU Action Plan on antimicrobial resistance. This new report confirms the link between antibiotic consumption and antibiotic resistance in both humans and food-producing animals.”

The report states that overall antibiotic use is higher in food-producing animals than in humans, but the situation varies across countries and classes of antibiotics. In particular, 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 and quinolones—antibiotics that are also considered critically important for human health.

Experts note that resistance to quinolones, used to treat salmonellosis and campylobacteriosis in humans, is associated with use of these antibiotics in animals. The use of third- and fourth-generation cephalosporins for the treatment of infections caused by E. coli and other bacteria in humans is associated with resistance to these antibiotics in E. coli found in humans.

Report