About this Research Topic

Background

As key medicines used to prevent and treat bacterial infections, antimicrobial treatments are important for maintaining the health of humans and animals. Bacterial infections in livestock and poultry are known to adversely affect animal growth, weight gain, reproduction, and animal welfare, among others. To limit the harmful consequences of such infections, livestock and poultry owners can use antimicrobials to treat diseases and maintain animal health and wellbeing. However, as antimicrobial usage has increased, there has been a corresponding increase in the development of antimicrobial-resistant bacteria which is hypothesized to transmit from animal products and the environment to humans. To maintain the effectiveness of antimicrobials for human health, governments are advancing antimicrobial stewardship policies to eliminate unnecessary uses and improve how and when antimicrobials are prescribed to livestock and poultry used for human consumption. These efforts hope to ensure a safe and profitable food supply chain from production to consumption.

In the last 20 years, there has been an increasing desire by the government and private industry to monitor the use of antimicrobial use in animal agriculture. Monitoring efforts were first piloted in developed countries with intensive animal agriculture production and have since expanded to include developing countries with more extensive agriculture production. Monitoring efforts have expanded to include antimicrobial stewardship and resistance. Government and private industry have taken varied approaches to mitigate perceived concerns about levels of use, resistance, and stewardship practices. To date, there have been few quantitative studies that have detailed the impact of such policies and business practices. The goal of this Research Topic is to quantitatively explore the producer, regional, country, and international impacts of such practices on the use, stewardship, and resistance of antimicrobials in animal agriculture.

This Research Topic seeks to quantitatively assess government and private industry research, practices, interventions, programs, and regulatory measures to impact antimicrobial use, stewardship, and resistance in food animal agriculture. Specifically, it aims to solicit papers that quantitatively assess these impacts. The focus is restricted to animal agriculture which includes both terrestrial and aquatic species in any type of production system (i.e. intensive or extensive) in both developing and developed countries. The emphasis is on quantitative assessments rather than on qualitative or synthesis reviews The information communicated in the papers will help policymakers and industry participants make informed decisions in their continuing efforts to implement improve animal agriculture while safeguarding the future use of antimicrobials in animals and humans.

Keywords: animal agriculture, antimicrobial stewardship, antimicrobial resistance, antimicrobial use, government intervention, private industry intervention

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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