New Delhi: The Indian scientific community has hailed the recent consensus by global political leaders to phase out the use of medically significant antibiotics in the agriculture and food production sectors. For India, it is a crucial step in addressing the country’s growing antimicrobial resistance (AMR) problem.
AMR occurs when bacteria, viruses, parasites and fungi change over time, and are no longer susceptible to the common medicines used to treat them. It is a serious global public health crisis.
The aforementioned decision was rolled out on 26 September, as part of the political declaration of the second High-Level Meeting on AMR, during the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).
“Compared to the political declaration of 2016, this declaration marks a big positive shift in the way the world wants to address AMR from agri-food systems. It is a huge step forward,” Sunita Narain, Director General, Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), a New Delhi-based environment research and advocacy organisation, said in a statement.
India, one of the signatory countries to the UN declaration, introduced its National Action Plan on AMR (NAP-AMR) in April 2017, shortly after the UN’s first High-Level Meeting on AMR in 2016.
Despite having an existing action plan, India continues to report cases of alarming rises in superbugs, which are pathogens resistant to multiple antibiotics and are extremely difficult to treat.
This issue was found in 21 of the country’s leading hospitals between 2017 and 2023, according to the annual report by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR)’s Antimicrobial Resistance Research and Surveillance Network (IAMRSN) released last month.
Findings from the Global Research on Antimicrobial Resistance (GRAM) Project, published in The Lancet last month, showed that India recorded between 3 and 10.4 lakh deaths in 2019 due to bacterial antimicrobial resistance.
The first analysis of the global burden of AMR, the GRAM project is a partnership between the University of Oxford and the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington.
“India faces a dual challenge—on the one hand, a large part of the population lacks access to affordable antibiotics, while on the other, we see the overuse and misuse of these drugs in human health, food animals, and agriculture,” Amit Khurana, programme director of sustainable food systems at CSE, told ThePrint in an email.
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India lacks integrated approach to implement national AMR action plan
According to the 2024 Tracking AMR Country Self-Assessment Survey (TrACSS), India has not yet fully implemented action against AMR at the regional level, despite the National Centre for Disease Control releasing in July 2018, a document on guidance for state action plans for containment of AMR (SAPCAR).
Only three states—Delhi, Kerala, and Madhya Pradesh—are developing action plans to combat AMR.
The 2024 TrACSS also shows that India lacks an integrated approach to implementing its national AMR action plan. Data and lessons from different sectors are not being utilised fully to improve the plan’s execution.
Khurana also said that there are serious gaps at the implementation level, citing the example of antibiotic residues in animal products, one of the biggest drivers of AMR. This occurs despite the fact that India has strong standards for antibiotic residues in animal products laid out by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI).
Due to inadequate testing and transparency, there is little public information on whether products such as eggs, meat and milk meet these standards.
“The National Milk Safety and Quality Survey, 2018 revealed antibiotic contamination in many samples, but follow-up testing has been minimal, failing to assure consumers or deter producers from misuse,” said Khurana.
He expressed deep concern over the absence of standard treatment guidelines on antibiotic use in animals, noting that many life-saving antibiotics, critical for human health, are still permitted in food from animals in India.
Khurana also highlighted the lack of regulations on animal feed, particularly poultry feed, where antibiotics are commonly used. This, he said, is one of the major obstacles in controlling the rise of superbugs.
“We have to stop allowing antibiotics as growth promoters, which is the biggest concern—a challenge recognised by the latest political declaration on AMR by the UN,” he added.
Khurana emphasised that in this battle against AMR, India needs to take the onus by setting tangible goals and focusing on prevention, which means gradually moving towards growing food in settings that are not dependent on chemicals.
“A declaration alone will not suffice without measurable targets. India must work towards reducing antibiotic use in agri-food systems, as promised in the UN political declaration and the 2022 Muscat Manifesto, which aims for a 30-50 percent reduction in the use of antimicrobials in agri-food systems by 2030, and the elimination of medically important antibiotics in animal and crop production,” Khurana added.
(Edited by Radifah Kabir)
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