SlavkoSereda / iStock
New data released today by three European Union (EU) agencies shows that antibiotic consumption among food-producing animals on the continent has significantly declined in recent years and is now lower than it is in people.
The joint inter-agency surveillance report also identified a connection between antibiotic use in livestock and drug-resistant bacteria found in humans.
Officials with the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) say the findings of the joint report indicate that measures taken by many European countries to reduce antibiotic use in food-animal production are having an impact, and that further efforts to improve antibiotic use both in human and animal medicine could have beneficial impacts on antimicrobial resistance (AMR).