Towards controlling antimicrobial resistance in global aquatic animal food systems by enhancing collective resilience (AMFORA)

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Aquatic animals such as fish and shellfish are an increasingly important source of protein for the growing world population. In 2014 the contribution of aquaculture to supply food for human consumption overtook that for wild-caught fish for the first time. Fish diseases are still considered to be a major constraint to aquaculture globally and it has been estimated that 10% of all farmed aquatic animals are lost because of infectious diseases alone, amounting to >10 billion USD in losses annually on a global scale. Farmed fish are often kept in intensive systems where antibiotics are heavily used. Effective vaccines exist for use in Atlantic salmon aquaculture and the use of antibiotics has been reduced by over 99%. In comparison, although many other species (e.g. carp and tilapia) are well established cultured species, there are few vaccines available, and antibiotics are still heavily used. Aquatic animals are increasingly traded worldwide, partly due to growing awareness for balanced diets and healthy eating in high-income countries and as a vital source of quality animal protein in low and middle income countries (LMIC). This creates opportunities and supports livelihoods in countries such as Bangladesh, Egypt and Vietnam, that together contribute to 9% of the global aquaculture production. Despite the importance of antibiotic use in aquaculture and the size of the global trade, the contribution of aquaculture to the burden of consumer exposure to antibiotic resistance genes is currently not being addressed. Reasons why this issue is currently not been tackled include; i) the complexity of global food systems that involve different actors (producers, suppliers, intermediaries) spanning different countries across the world, ii) the lack of knowledge of the so called "drivers" of resistance in aquatic systems (i.e. the influences, e.g. through animal husbandry and farm management, that result in the emergence of resistance in bacteria) and, iii) the fragmented responsibilities in global food systems. However, it is important that antibiotic resistance in aquaculture is addressed as a global issue, because hazards emerging in producer countries will have public impact on consumers elsewhere through global trade and travel. Also, opportunities to learn from progress made in European fish farming remain underexploited. To address this complex challenge we need innovative research strategies that combine different disciplines and approach the system as a whole rather than its individual components in isolation. Our plan for the full proposal stage is to apply research methods that allow us to integrate societal, legal, governance and economic drivers in addition to biological risk, creating new approaches to better describe, analyse and assess the resilience of a global food system. In the first phase of the project, two workshops will be conducted to develop the model framework and plan the activities for the second phase. These workshops together with a review of published studies, reports and interviews with key stakeholders will allow us to map the different components of the system, the drivers, responsibilities and governance and to identify knowledge gaps for the main project. Our focus will be on selected fish species farmed in Bangladesh, Vietnam and Egypt, all of which are traded internationally. In the full-stage proposal, intervention strategies to reduce antibiotic use will be developed and implemented and their impact assessed using novel approaches. Our aspiration is that this project increases risk awareness for consumers, enhances surveillance and develops a novel set of indicators of system resilience in the context of antibiotic resistance.