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

对于不断增长的世界人口来说，鱼和贝类等水生动物是一种日益重要的蛋白质来源。2014年，水产养殖对人类消费食物的贡献首次超过了野生捕捞的鱼类。鱼类疾病仍然被认为是全球水产养殖的主要制约因素，据估计，仅因传染病一项，就有10%的养殖水生动物损失，在全球范围内每年总计损失100亿美元。养殖的鱼通常被饲养在密集的系统中，那里大量使用抗生素。目前已有用于大西洋鲑鱼水产养殖的有效疫苗，抗生素的使用减少了99%以上。相比之下，尽管许多其他物种(例如鲤鱼和罗非鱼)都是成熟的养殖物种，但可用的疫苗很少，抗生素仍然大量使用。水生动物在全球范围内的交易越来越多，部分原因是高收入国家对平衡饮食和健康饮食的认识日益提高，以及低收入和中等收入国家(LMIC)作为优质动物蛋白的重要来源。这在孟加拉国、埃及和越南等国创造了机会并支持了生计，这些国家加起来占全球水产养殖产量的9%。尽管抗生素在水产养殖中的使用和全球贸易的规模很重要，但水产养殖对消费者接触抗生素耐药基因的负担的贡献目前没有得到解决。这一问题目前没有得到解决的原因包括：i)涉及世界不同国家的不同行为者(生产者、供应商、中间商)的全球食品系统的复杂性；ii)对水产系统中所谓的抗药性“驱动因素”缺乏了解(即通过畜牧业和农场管理等导致出现细菌抗药性的影响)；iii)全球食品系统中的责任分散。然而，重要的是，应将水产养殖中的抗生素耐药性作为一个全球问题加以解决，因为生产国出现的危害将通过全球贸易和旅行对其他地方的消费者产生公共影响。此外，学习欧洲养鱼取得的进展的机会仍然没有得到充分利用。为了应对这一复杂的挑战，我们需要创新的研究战略，将不同的学科结合起来，并将整个系统作为一个整体来对待，而不是孤立地对待其个别组成部分。我们对整个提案阶段的计划是应用研究方法，使我们能够在生物风险之外整合社会、法律、治理和经济驱动因素，创造新的方法来更好地描述、分析和评估全球粮食系统的弹性。在该项目的第一阶段，将举办两个讲习班，以制定示范框架并规划第二阶段的活动。这些讲习班加上对已发表的研究、报告的审查和与主要利益攸关方的访谈，将使我们能够绘制出系统的不同组成部分、驱动因素、责任和治理，并确定主要项目的知识差距。我们的重点将是在孟加拉国、越南和埃及养殖的精选鱼类品种，所有这些品种都在国际上进行贸易。在整个阶段的提案中，将制定和实施减少抗生素使用的干预战略，并使用新的方法评估其影响。我们的抱负是，这个项目提高消费者的风险意识，加强监测，并开发一套在抗生素耐药性背景下的系统弹性的新指标。

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.