World Health Organization (WHO) awarded a research project on antibiotic resistance to School of Public Health and Zoonoses of Guru Angad Dev Veterinary and Animal Sciences University. It was awarded by regional office for South East Asian Region. The project will be headed by Dr. Randhir Singh, Professor, School of Public Health and Zoonoses and his team. The school is actively working in the area of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) for last many years and has several national and international collaborations in this area. It was this strength of the school that prompted WHO to award this project to the varsity. Dr. Randhir Singh informed that AMR is one of the major and important global health problems and their indiscriminate use in human and animal health sectors is mainly to blame for this. He also informed that if this problem is not addressed immediately then as per some projections by 2050 about 10 million individuals annually are going to lose their life globally and the losses would be higher in low or middle income countries.
Dr. JPS Gill, Director Research, of the university, who himself is quite active in the area told that scientists of the university will carry out the situation analysis of the antibiotic use in animal production and agriculture sector and its impact on food safety and AMR for South-East Asia Region. This project will identify the weak areas in our attempts to tackle AMR and make key recommendation for the international agency to solve the problem of antibiotic resistance in south east Asian regions.
Dr. Inderjeet Singh, Vice-Chancellor, GADVASU lauded the efforts of the scientists. He said that, the issue of antibiotic resistance is a big economic burden, it is important to continuously monitor this problem especially in animal production and agricultural sector to work out ways and means to reduce this. There are gaps in the available information on antibiotic usage in animal production and agricultural sector, which lessen the impact of efforts we make to address this. Therefore, analysis of actual situation prevailing in these countries including India will certainly boost our efforts to reduce the effects of antibiotic resistance.
Dr. R S. Aulakh, Director, School of Public Health and Zoonoses emphasized that food animals and foods of animal origin are one of the important contributors of antibiotic resistant organisms. Growing population and increased food demand is further going to escalate the problem.
