FAO-APHCA/OIE Regional Technical Workshop on the Prevention and Control of Animal Brucellosis and Tuberculosis in Asia (Bangkok Thailand, 11-13 September 2017) Brucellosis has been considered an economically important and neglected zoonotic disease in the region and therefore, a series of workshops have been organised on the disease since 2008. However, the main focus of previous workshops have been in laboratory diagnosis and laboratory capacity building. During the last FAO-OIE workshop on neglected zoonoses in 2015, development of a brucellosis control and eradication strategy to be pursued was one of the recommendations. In the same workshop tuberculosis was also identified as one of the five priority neglected zoonoses in the region for which no separate workshop was conducted earlier. Growing problem of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and in particular issues regarding multi drug resistance (MDR) of tuberculosis in humans prompted us to organise the workshop with the following objectives and expected outputs.

Can you imagine a day when antibiotics do not work anymore and antibiotics that we depend upon for treating skin and ear infections to life-threatening bloodstream infections no longer work? Unfortunately, the threat of untreatable infections is very real and the widespread overuse and incorrect practices in human and animal production are linked to driving the ever-increasing drug resistance. FAO is on the forefront together with WHO and the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) in the quest against Antimicrobial Resistance.

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18 April 2017

Public health and sustainable food production are facing a serious global threat today: the increasing spread of Antimicrobial Resistance. Antimicrobial Resistance refers to bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites that become resistant to anti-microbial drugs.

How do microbes become resistant? Antimicrobials, such as antibiotics, are used to kill or stop microbes from growing in humans, animals and plants.

Antimicrobial Resistance can occur naturally over time, but overuse and misuse of antimicrobial drugs in humans and in agriculture speed up the development of Antimicrobial Resistance.

As a result, the medicines we use to treat common infections are becoming less and less powerful or even useless.

How does Antimicrobial Resistance spread? Microbes that are resistant to anti-microbials can be found in people, animals, food, water and the environment.