FAO Offers Guidance to Food Safety Stakeholders on Mitigating Foodborne AMR
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has published a new resource to help food safety stakeholders understand the actions they can take to mitigate foodborne antimicrobial resistance (AMR).
Overuse or misuse of antimicrobials and improper disposal of antimicrobials in food-producing animals and agriculture may result in food and environmental contamination, creating food safety hazards and contributing to the global rise of AMR.
Some estimates suggest as many as 300 million people worldwide may die prematurely due to drug resistance by 2050. In 2019, an estimated 4.95 million deaths and 1.27 million deaths were respectively associated with, and attributed to, bacterial AMR.
Therefore, the new FAO publication encourages food producers and authorities to promote and implement interventions like vaccine programs, compliance monitoring, research into alternatives to antibiotics in agriculture, and consumer awareness programs. It points to specific Codex texts and other resources on antimicrobial use in agrifood systems to help stakeholders at all points in the value chain mitigate foodborne AMR.
The full publication can be accessed here.
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