Here’s alarming news that can kill the joy of eating chicken: Researchers at the University of the Philippines have discovered that poultry products sold in 15 wet markets and 15 supermarkets in Metro Manila were contaminated with drug-resistant Campylobacter bacteria, which can cause gastroenteritis or stomach flu. Acute gastroenteritis from Campylobacter infection causes 400 million to 500 million cases of diarrhea annually, the researchers said. Worse, they discovered that most of the bacteria in the contaminated samples were resistant to the common antibiotics used to fight them.
As the presence of drug-resistant Campylobacter in the samples tested is a serious public-health concern, the researchers recommended that “further monitoring of chicken products is suggested since the level and type of contamination represents a significant risk to consumers.” In other words, the absence of effective national surveillance and supervision of antibiotics use in poultry products masks the severity of the threat.
A BusinessMirror story, “Catastrophic antibiotic threat from food”, published on April 16, 2017, in the paper’s Science section, said: “The greatly excessive use of antibiotics in food production in recent decades has made many bacteria more resistant to antibiotics.” This is quite alarming, given that the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has estimated that antibiotic use in animal husbandry, poultry farming and aquaculture in the US is over four times the government recommended levels.
In the Philippines the improper and excessive use of antibiotics is mainly of concern when it affects the country’s reputation abroad or when export earnings are at stake. Hardly any attention is given to the threats posed to domestic consumers who consume antibiotic-resistant bacteria along with their favorite tinola. Making chicken safer to eat will require changing the way that it is raised. As recommended by the University of the Philippines researchers, further monitoring of chicken products is needed because the contamination represents a significant risk to consumers. There’s also a need to adopt strict food safety-management strategies in key production points to ensure that poultry products sold in public markets are safe.
Sadly, the abuse of antibiotics is common in the global poultry industry. This is the reason an American fast-food restaurant chain that specializes in fried chicken has announced that it will serve chicken raised without antibiotics starting next year. KFC said it would stop serving chicken raised using antibiotics that are important in human medicine by the end of 2018. “The threat of resistance to human antibiotics is a rising public-health concern in the US. As such, offering chicken raised without medically important antibiotics is the next step in our food promise to our customers,” KFC said in a statement.
KFC has the largest number of restaurants of any chicken chain, and the company said its decision will have an impact on the chicken industry beyond the meat it buys for its own restaurants.
As the restaurant chain has strong presence in the country, the announcement is an important step forward for public health. We hope that government authorities will start monitoring the overuse of antibiotics among local poultry raisers. We fear to see the day when antibiotics, a lifesaving drug, will totally lose its effectiveness to treat sick people because of overuse and abuse.