70% of diseases traceable to livestock–FAO
Baku, December 19 (AZERTAC). SEVENTY percent of the new human diseases over recent decades are of animal origin and, in part, directly related to the human quest for more animal-sourced food, warns a United Nations (UN) body on Monday.
“Population growth, agricultural expansion and the rise of globe-spanning food supply chains have dramatically altered how diseases emerge, jump species boundaries, and spread,” according to the “World Livestock 2013: Changing Disease Landscapes” report by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
The report also said that focus on root causes and prevention are needed, which will necessitate a new, more holistic approach to managing disease threats at the animal-human-environment interface.
“Livestock and wildlife are more in contact with each other, and we ourselves are more in contact with animals than ever before,” according to Ren Wang, FAO assistant director general for Agriculture and Consumer Protection.
According to FAO, developing countries are saddled by human and animal, particularly livestock, diseases. These diseases are an impediment to development and food safety, the report said.
Recurrent epidemics in livestock affect food security, livelihoods, and national and local economies both in poor and rich countries, while food safety hazards and antibiotic resistance are on the increase worldwide.
On Wednesday the US Food and Drug Administration has decided to phase out the non-medical use of antibiotics on farm animals in an effort to combat growing human resistance to the crucial drugs, in a major shift of national food policy.
Once enforced, the plan would push livestock and poultry producers to limit their use of antibiotics to treating sick animals, and to stop using the drugs to promote faster growth.
“Farms consume about 80 percent of the nation’s antibiotics supply. Such frequent use has come at a price: Antibiotic-resistant superbugs are on the rise,” according to the statement, adding that more than 2 million people in the US now contract drug-resistant infections annually, resulting in 23,000 deaths, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The disease control and prevention center said an outbreak of antibiotic-resistant salmonella linked to Foster Farms chicken from plants in central California sickened nearly 400 people this year, with 40 percent hospitalized.
“The restriction on the non-medical use of antibiotic to livestock is a positive measure,” saying also that aside from encouraging antibiotic-resistant superbugs, the indiscriminate use of the medicine leave chemical residues in the meat which may be harmful to human health, according to Dr. Synan S. Baguio, assistant director for the livestock research division under the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic and Natural Resources Research and Development.
Synan also told the BusinessMirror that the Department of Science and Technology through his agency, is developing a system, like a tag or barcode, which can trace the agricultural products, particularly meat, ultimately, to the producer including the feeds and other inputs used in the production.
“This would also help our products at par with the international standards,” Synan also said.
In its report, FAO also noted that in the push to produce more food, “humans have carved out vast swaths of agricultural land in previously wild areas—putting themselves and their animals into contact with wildlife-borne diseases.”
The UN agency said climate fluctuation is having direct impacts on the environmental survival rate of disease agents, especially in warm and humid areas, while climate change influences the habitats of hosts, migration patterns and disease transmission dynamics.
FAO also said that while livestock production provides a number of economic and nutrition benefits, the sector’s rapid growth has spawned a number of health-related challenges, adding that intensive production systems are largely free from high-impact animal and zoonotic diseases, but present some pitfalls, particularly in developing countries and countries in transition, and that strong biosecurity and health protection regimes are needed to generally prevent infectious disease problems and major outbreaks.
To address the problem, FAO advocates the “One Health” approach, which looks at the interplay between environmental factors, animal health and human health, and bringing human health professionals, veterinary specialists, sociologists, economists and ecologists together to work on disease issues within a holistic framework.
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