How millions of supermarket chickens contain potentially fatal superbug that can’t be treated with antibiotics
Worrying research reveals 450 million chickens sold on UK high street are infected with campylobacter that is resistant to at least one important drug
MILLIONS of supermarket chickens carry a potentially fatal superbug because of the use of antibiotics in farming, experts warn.
Some 73 per cent of chickens sold in the British high street in 2014-15 were infected with the food-poisoning bacteria campylobacter.
And in 75 per cent of cases the bugs were resistant to at least one antibiotic or antimicrobial, research published by the Food Standards Agency reveals.
It suggests more than 450 million chickens sold in the UK every year are contaminated with campylobacter bugs resistant to at least one important antibiotic.
Most worryingly, around 5 per cent of bacteria - on 36 million birds a year - were resistant to a wide range of drugs commonly used in human medicine.
It means it is more difficult for doctors to treat a patient who falls ill after eating an infected bird.
Campylobacter is the biggest cause of food poisoning with more than 500,000 cases a year and an estimated 100 deaths.
The FSA’s chief scientific adviser Professor Guy Poppy said: "The high levels of resistance found are of particular concern. With 900million chickens produced in 2014, there could potentially be millions of chickens with multi‑resistant campylobacter."
Modern farming methods have been blamed for the rise of antibiotic-resistant strains of food-poisoning bacteria such as campylobacter, e.coli and salmonella.
Farm animals are routinely given antibiotics to prevent diseases, but some bacteria mutate to develop a resistance to the drugs and are then able to spread unchecked.
A few super-strains become resistant to several common antibiotics, leaving doctors with ever decreasing options to treat killer illnesses.
The Government’s chief medical officer, Professor Dame Sally Davies, has warned even minor infections could become untreatable, describing antimicrobial resistance as a "catastrophic threat".
The FSA has declared the emergence of antibiotic resistance a "significant threat to public health".
Last night the United Nations launched a global effort to fight superbugs, warning of a mounting death toll without more research.
Margaret Chan, director-general of the World Health Organisation, told a UN summit in New York: "Some scientists call it a slow-motion tsunami. The situation is bad and getting worse."
A recent study warned the spread of resistant superbugs could be responsible for up to 10 million deaths a year worldwide by 2050 - as many as cancer.
Already some 230,000 newborns die each year from infections that cannot be treated with antibiotics, according to UN estimates.
Dame Sally has called on the British farming industry to slash the use of antibiotics.
But trade body Ruma, which represents drug distributors, farming groups and meat processors, said the use of antibiotics in farms plays only a small part in the problem and doctors giving unnecessary antibiotics to patients is a bigger issue.
Chairman Gwyn Jones said: "Test results such as these build a better picture of the challenges we all face across human and veterinary medicine.
"Good kitchen hygiene, washing hands after handling raw meat and thorough cooking, as advised by the FSA, remain the most reliable ways of preventing the spread of any harmful bacteria."
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