EU Report Cites Antimicrobial Resistance as “Alarming Threat”

23 Feb 2017 --- The latest findings by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) show that bacteria found in humans, animals and food continue to show resistance to widely used antimicrobials.

This underlines the fact that AMR poses a serious threat to public and animal health, say the authorities as infections caused by bacteria that are resistant to antimicrobials lead to approximately 25,000 deaths across Europe every year.

“Antimicrobial resistance is an alarming threat putting human and animal health in danger. We have put substantial efforts to stop its rise, but this is not enough. We must be quicker, stronger and act on several fronts. This is why the Commission will launch a new Action Plan this summer that will give a new framework for future coordinated actions to reduce the spread of antimicrobial resistance,” says Vytenis Andriukaitis, EU Commissioner for Health and Food Safety.

The report shows that in general multi-drug resistance in Salmonella bacteria is high across the EU. However, experts note that resistance to critically important antimicrobials used to
treat severe human cases of Salmonella infection remains low. Salmonellosis, the disease caused by these bacteria, is the second most commonly reported foodborne disease in the EU.

“It is of particular concern that some common types of Salmonella in humans, such as monophasic Salmonella Typhimurium, exhibit extremely high multi-drug resistance. Prudent use of antibiotics in human and veterinary medicine is extremely important to address the challenge posed by antimicrobial resistance. We all have a responsibility to ensure that antibiotics keep working,” says Mike Catchpole, chief scientist at ECDC.

Antimicrobial resistance levels in Europe continue to vary by geographical region, with countries in Northern and Western Europe generally having lower resistance levels than those in Southern and Eastern Europe.

“These geographic variations are most likely related to differences in antimicrobial use across the EU. For example, countries where actions have been taken to reduce, replace and re-think the use of antimicrobials in animals show lower levels of antimicrobial resistance and decreasing trends,” says Marta Hugas, Head of EFSA’s Biological Hazards and Contaminants unit. 

This year’s report presents the results of the analysis of data submitted by Member States for2015, focusing on pigs and cattle. Next year the report will cover broilers, laying hens and
turkeys.

The report is accompanied by a data visualization tool, which displays data by country on antimicrobial resistance levels of some bacteria found in foods, animals and humans.