Antibiotic Use in Food Animals in the World with Focus on Africa: Pluses and Minuses

Antibiotics are sometimes used in food animal production in developing countries to promote the well-being and growth of the animals. This practice provides some economic benefits to producers and consumers at large. Nevertheless, this practice is associated with a number of concerns. A major concern has been that repeatedly exposing these animals to small doses of antibiotics contributes significantly to antibiotic resistance, since a good fraction of the antibiotics used are the same or surrogates of antibiotics used in human therapeutic practices. Studies over decades have shown an explicit relationship between antimicrobial use and antimicrobial resistance in veterinary science. Many antibiotics can be purchased over the counter in African countries and antibiotic resistance is an important issue to address in this region. This review examines some of the risks and benefits associated with antibiotic use in food animals. We conclude that the use of antibiotics in food animal production constitutes a major contributing factor to the current antibiotic resistance crisis and they should only be used for treatment of sick animals based on prior diagnosis of disease.