Three UK retailers are procuring for meat from chickens in Poland that got a bunch of antibiotics outmoded to treat human Salmonella infections.
An investigation by broadcaster ITV, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism and newspaper The Guardian stumbled on Asda, Iceland, and Lidl glean frozen chicken merchandise from a Polish poultry vendor linked to a previous Salmonella outbreak.
It revealed SuperDrob is sourcing chicken from farms that spend fluoroquinolone antibiotics, that are also outmoded to treat human Salmonella infections. The firm confirmed to investigators that the capsules were outmoded but denied overuse and acknowledged that here is also prohibited for its suppliers.
Samples of raze easy from a resolution of Polish poultry farms that have provided SuperDrob were tested and E. coli immune to fluoroquinolones was stumbled on.
SuperDrob was linked to a Salmonella outbreak in the UK and Europe in 2020. The UK’s Chief Veterinary Officer Christine Middlemiss known as for action in a letter to her Polish counterpart in December 2020. In April 2021, officials from Poland and the UK met with regards to to focus on the safety of poultry meat.
Salmonella and Poland self-discipline
A series of Salmonella outbreaks in 2020 and 2021 precipitated by breaded chicken from Poland will have affected as a lot as 5,000 other folks in the UK and price an estimated £7.7 million ($9.6 million), in step with authorities officials.
Between Could presumably also 2018 and December 2020, virtually 100 sufferers were reported in Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Poland, and Sweden.
A total of 190 Salmonella RASFF notifications mentioned poultry meat merchandise from Poland, in step with figures from the 2022 Alert and Cooperation community (ACN) file.
Considerations referring to the safety of frozen, breaded, raw chicken merchandise led the Meals Requirements Agency (FSA) and UK Effectively being Security Agency (UKHSA) to scrutinize on the incidence of Salmonella, E. coli and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in items equivalent to nuggets, dippers and goujons, available for retail sale retail in the UK.
Overall, 310 samples were tested between April and July 2021, and Salmonella was detected 5 instances. One other peek in 2020, stumbled on Salmonella in 40 of 456 samples of chicken merchandise on retail sale.
Data from the later compare counsel a decline in contamination rates between 2020 and 2021. Affected supermarkets changed suppliers, which after all in part defined the improved outcomes, as contamination was linked to fully just a few producers.
A third peek, published in the Journal of Utilized Microbiology, easy chicken merchandise between April and July 2021 from retailers in the UK and tested them for Salmonella, generic E. coli, prolonged spectrum beta-lactamase-producing, colistin-resistant, and carbapenem-resistant E. coli.
Salmonella was detected in 5 of 310 samples. Three were Salmonella Infantis and two Salmonella Java. One S. Infantis isolate was multidrug resistant, whereas the others were immune to after all one class of antimicrobials. Generic E. coli were detected in 113 samples, with multidrug resistance demonstrated in 20 p.c of those. A colistin-resistant E. coli was remoted from one sample; this had the mcr-1 gene.
Response to investigation
The FAIRR Initiative acknowledged findings of the investigation and its hold work counsel that peaceable guidance and rules discontinuance now not plug some distance ample to be decided that food security.
Jo Raven, director of thematic compare and engagements on the FAIRR Initiative, acknowledged AMR poses both a agonize to public successfully being and a monetary agonize to investors in meat producers and retailers.
“As FAIRR’s Protein Producer Index has shown, this agonize continues to upward thrust despite the increasing resolution of firms with World Meals Security Initiative (GFSI) acknowledged certification,” she acknowledged.
“With approximately 70 p.c of antibiotic spend going down in animal agriculture provide chains, it’s decided that stronger regulations, and stricter enforcement, would perhaps be necessary to be decided that food security and accountable antibiotic spend in the protein provide chain. As the UK revises its veterinary treatment regulations post-Brexit, there is a exact more than a few for the authorities to abolish bigger its ambition and support avoid a repeat of this tragic raze consequence.”
Kath Dalmeny, CEO of Preserve, acknowledged: “To raze our closing antibiotics to mask up uncomfortable prerequisites on chicken farms is deeply irresponsible. It is incredibly anxious to be taught that meat from animals dosed with crucial antibiotics is being sourced for UK supermarkets; this might perhaps occasionally consequence in potentially lethal micro organism constructing antibiotic resistance. The spend of human crucial antibiotics in animal farming must stay, and spend of completely different farm antibiotics greatly reduced. They can even peaceable fully ever be outmoded on particular person ill animals, now not preventative or mass treatment.”
Cóilín Nunan, from the Alliance to Build Our Antibiotics, acknowledged high-precedence critically crucial antibiotics, love fluoroquinolones and colistin, are overused in Polish farming.
“The UK authorities, the FSA and supermarkets would perhaps well also peaceable all rob accountability for making certain that food produced with such noxious misuse of life-saving antibiotics doesn’t reach the British person.”
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