Conduct regular screening of fast Food outlets, scientist urges NAFDAC

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A Nigerian scientist and professor of Biochemistry and Biotechnology, Bamidele Iwalokun, has urged the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control to develop a strategy for screening fast food outlets for the possible use of antibiotics in their preparation.

Prof. Iwalokun, who is a Director, Central Research Laboratory, Nigerian Institute of Medical Research, Yaba, Lagos, said this has become imperative, citing reported cases in other countries where antibiotics were used in fast foods.

The biotechnologist, however, said though no case had been reported in Nigeria yet, the practice could be ongoing in the country.

Speaking in an exclusive interview, the biotechnologist, said NAFDAC should raise awareness of the dangers of abusing antibiotics and sanction any food vendor involved in the practice.

According to the scientist, one of the emergence and spread of antibiotic resistance is the use of antibiotics in livestock, poultry, and also in ready to eat foods also known as fast foods.

The researcher explained, “Now, in livestock and poultry, farmers normally use antibiotics as growth promoters. They want to get a bigger size of their farm products to make more money.

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“Another reason farmers use antibiotics is to prevent livestock from having diseases. In as much as the same antibiotics would be used to treat diseases when they occur, the first instance of use is an abuse of antibiotics while the last one is the responsible use of antibiotics.

“Currently, there is that indulgence in the use of antibiotics as growth promoters. It should be stopped. 

“As much as now they are using drugs like paracetamol to tenderize meat, there is also a high possibility of using antibiotics for similar purposes since a vendor may not be able to distinguish between a paracetamol and an antibiotic.”

According to the World Health Organisation, antibiotic resistance leads to higher medical costs, prolonged hospital stays, and increased mortality, adding that antibiotic resistance is rising to dangerously high levels in all parts of the world.

 To prevent antibiotic resistance, the expert said it was also important that farmers stop using antibiotics in their feeds, poultries, poultry water, livestock, and pigs’ rearing.

“This is because these antibiotics will contribute to antibiotic-resistant bacteria that would move from the farm to the plate because they will not stay on the farm.

“When they move to the plate and we consume them, they will enter into our system and in case we are immunocompromised and we have an infection, that infection will be antibiotic resistance infection and that is what is causing the problem.

“Currently, 700,000 people die because of antibiotic resistance and if nothing is done about that, it will rise to 10 million by 2050 and Africa will bear the greatest brunt of it”, he said.

The professor stated that there was a need for awareness creation on the use of antibiotics in Nigeria to prevent the ongoing resistance.

He noted, “We have had reports of using antibiotics in fast foods in other countries but we have not had any report of it occurring in Nigeria. We should create awareness that it should not be done. What NAFDAC should do is develop a strategy to screen ready-to-eat foods for possible antibiotic contamination because it has been reported that antibiotics are used in fast foods.

“But we do not have the evidence in Nigeria yet. But as a way of acting proactively to forestall it, the regulatory agency should put a strategy in motion for screening antibiotics in ready-to-eat foods such as sausages, bulgar, meat pie, sausages, among others.”

“NAFDAC should carry out the screening in case such practice is being done unnoticed. By the time we screen and find residues of antibiotics in them, such food vendors should be sanctioned. This is because it is a practice that will further promote the spread of antibiotic resistance if not forestalled.”

The WHO states that new resistance mechanisms are emerging and spreading globally thereby threatening the world’s ability to treat common infectious diseases.

“A growing list of infections – such as pneumonia, tuberculosis, blood poisoning, gonorrhoea, and foodborne diseases – are becoming harder, and sometimes impossible, to treat as antibiotics become less effective

“The world urgently needs to change the way it prescribes and uses antibiotics. Even if new medicines are developed, without behaviour change, antibiotic resistance will remain a major threat. Behaviour changes must also include actions to reduce the spread of infections through vaccination, hand washing, practising safer sex, and good food hygiene”, WHO says.