Constraints to and Prospects for Sustainable Livestock Sector Practices in Argentina with Emphasis on Antimicrobial Usage
By David Oseguera Montiel
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a top threat for global health and development as it has the potential to become the next pandemic. Agriculture roughly accounts for three-quarters of all the antimicrobial usage. Modern animal husbandry systems use antimicrobials for disease prevention and growth promotion. Regulations and restrictions regarding antimicrobial use in agriculture vary across the regions of the world. This paper explores the situation of the Argentina livestock sector with regard to antimicrobial use. Argentina is renowned as a global food producer, notably for its grain and livestock production potential. This paper analyzes the constraints to and prospects for transitioning towards a more sustainable livestock farming production in Argentina by relying less on antimicrobials and without compromising productivity. The livestock sector in Argentina has embarked on the intensification of farming, especially beef farming, in the last thirty years. Farming intensification generally requires the use of greater quantities of antibiotics. Alternative sustainable intensification is necessary to overcome antimicrobial overuse. Various factors, including economic, social, and cultural, shape consumption patterns. The Argentine farming sector needs to focus on these context-specific situations, which will drive animal food production.
Antimicrobial Resistance: Optimizing Antimicrobial Use in Food-Producing Animals
By Viviana Munoz Tellez
The increasing resistance of microorganisms to antimicrobials that help to treat and control spread of infections is a major public health problem around the world. Antimicrobial resistance is aggravated by inappropriate use of antimicrobials in human and animal health and in plant and animal agriculture. This paper tackles the question of how to shift animal food production to implement adequate antimicrobial stewardship practices.
Support for awareness campaigns on Antimicrobial Resistance
By Mirza Alas
Civil society organisations (CSOs) are crucial in mobilising local action to address Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) and provide health promotion strategies closer to the community. Recognising this, the South Centre continuously supports grass root and context-specific efforts in developing countries on raising awareness on the threat of rising resistance to medicines that is making it harder to treat infections.
The World AMR Awareness Week (WAAW) is held annually to increase global awareness and understanding of AMR. The theme for the 2023 WAAW campaign was “Preventing Antimicrobial Resistance Together,” which took place from November 18 to 24.
To support WAAW 2023, the South Centre offered small grants to eleven CSOs to design and launch awareness and education campaigns on AMR, with financial support from the Fleming Fund. The selected organisations represent youth, women, healthcare workers, veterinarians, and students. This report is a summary of all the different campaigns.
Financial Support for Civil Society Advocacy during World AMR Awareness Week (WAAW) 2023
The South Centre invites applications from the members of the Antibiotic Resistance Coalition (ARC), other civil society organizations and research institutions from developing countries for limited financial funding (maximum 2000 USD) to design and launch or extend advocacy campaigns engaging communities to address AMR.
The scope of the campaigns can be human health, the human-animal interface, use of antimicrobials in food production systems, and the role of the environment in the transmission and spread of AMR.
The campaigns should take place around the World AMR Awareness Week 2023. The WAAW 2023 Theme is ‘Preventing Antimicrobial Resistance Together”, to be celebrated from 18 to 24 November 2023.
Antimicrobial Resistance, pharmaceuticals and environment
South Centre Virtual Workshop, 28 & 29 March 2023, 2:30-4:30 PM CET
The emergence and spread of resistant genes and pathogens among and between humans, animals and the environment is a global threat. Join to learn and share how civil society is tackling these issues and how to elicit ways such efforts might seed or scale more broadly such action.
This workshop is organized with the support of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the European Commission.
Read the South Centre Annual Report 2022 for an analysis of the situation faced by our members & other developing countries & for a summary of the Centre’s activities in 2022.
Latin American and Caribbean Meeting: Communities Empowered to Tackle Antimicrobial Resistance
Organizers: Pan American Health Organization, ReAct Latin America, the Global Health Consortium of the Florida International University, South Centre
This dialogue involving civil society, non-governmental organizations, academics, international organizations, and governments seeks to capture, share, and learn from the experience of different communities in infection prevention and control and the appropriate use of antimicrobials and draw relevant lessons on how to better engage communities and enable their active participation in addressing AMR.
