The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has tightened antibiotics residue norms for meat and meat products, milk and milk products, poultry, eggs and aquaculture, lowering the permissible levels and placing more drugs on its watch list, Economics Times reported.
The norms are being tightened to tackle ‘superbugs’ – basically bacteria and fungi that have developed resistance to antibiotics and other medications due to drug ‘misuse’, the newspaper reported. The revised limits, notified by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) recently, will come into effect from April 1, 2025.
The newspaper quoted George Cheriyan, working president of Consumers Protection Association (CPA), as saying that if enforced strictly, the regulations will ensure safer food products for consumers by setting stricter residue and contaminant limits across a variety of food items and help in dealing with antimicrobial resistance.
The FSSAI has also prohibited the use of antibiotics during honey production and reset the limit of the chemicals ochratoxin A and deoxynivalenol in wheat, wheat bran, barley, rye and coffee.
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR), caused when microbes evolve into drug-resistant ‘superbugs’ in response to the presence of antibiotics, is considered one of the top threats to health and development. India has one of the highest rates of resistance to antimicrobial agents used both in humans and food animals, the newspaper said.
Antibiotics are usually used in the farming sector to treat diseases in animals, Cheriyan said, adding that using antibiotics as growth promoters is resulting in the development of antibiotic-resistant strains and the release of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the environment.
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Naresh Khanna – 10 February 2025
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