The National President Nigerian Veterinary Medical Association (NVMA), Dr Olutoyin Adetuberu has said that if actions are not taken on time, antimicrobial resistance can lead to 10 million global deaths annually by 2050.
According to her, the deaths will lead to a loss of $100 million to the global economy.
Speaking during the Annual Leaders’ Summit of the NVMA on Monday in Abuja, Dr Adetuberu said antimicrobial resistance is a global threat that has the potential to undermine the effectiveness of modern medicine and pose a serious threat to public health.
“The scale of this problem is alarming, and it is estimated that by 2050, there will be 10 million deaths per year leading to a loss of $100 trillion to the global economy.
“One of the key solutions to this problem is to promote responsible use of antibiotics in animals. This includes reducing the use of antibiotics for growth promotion, and only using them when necessary for the treatment of sick animals.
“Anti-microbial resistance is one of the most urgent and complex public health challenges of our time. It is a threat to the effective treatment of infections in humans and animals, and has the potential to undermine the progress that has been made in modern medicine.
“We must also encourage farmers to adopt good animal husbandry practices, such as proper hygiene, biosecurity measures, and vaccination programs, to reduce the need for antibiotics in the first place.”
Speaking about the Summit with the theme ‘Role of Veterinarians in Curbing the Menace of Antimicrobial Resistance’, the NVMA President said it is a summit where all the leaders in the 36 states of the federation including FCT meet yearly to deliberate on issues of national importance to the veterinary profession.
“This year we are looking at an issue that is of global importance which is antimicrobial resistance and we want everybody to know that it is a global responsibility for all of us to take charge of our antimicrobial resistance so that we all will work towards mitigating against it because it is the next epidemic that is about to strike, and as veterinarians who are the first public health practitioner, we are out to discuss on how to curb antimicrobial resistance”, she added.
The Chairman of the summit, Senator Dr Aliyu Abdullahi, who is also Deputy Chief Whip of the Senate, said antimicrobial Resistance is not just an animal issue, but a global issue that affects both the human and animal populations.
“What we are simply saying is that where antimicrobials that are meant to cure a particular disease condition, where it is not used properly or misused, we will have a situation where rather get the effect of cure on treatment or either the animal or human, we get other situations where it stays longer or the persons doesn’t even get cured.
“For us as veterinarians, the importance can be seen from the fact that human beings consume a lot of food of animal origin, whether egg, milk or meat.
“So the essence of this summit is to look at all these issues, with a view to identifying ways in which the practitioners and even the leaders in the field of veterinary practice and other public health professionals will know exactly what they are doing in terms of helping to minimise the misuse, misapplication and even weed out those that are fake,” he stated.
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