A study carried out previously by the University of Cambridge (Great Britain) had shown that a sample of chicken meat out of four were contaminated with E.coli bacteria. A new study by Britain’s Department of the Environment and Food has found that the infection is even greater as two-thirds of chickens sold in UK supermarket chains are infected with a strain of Escherichia-coli bacteria antibiotic resistant.
According to the researchers, this unprecedented infection is due to the fact that for years, breeders injected antibiotics into the chicks to prevent them from contracting the bacteria. Over the decades, poultry have thus developed a resistance to E.coli.
A bacterium that causes resistance in consumers
The incriminated strain does not cause vomiting or food poisoning, which is pretty good news. But as the researchers point out, by dint of ingesting this type of meat, consumers in turn risk creating resistance to antibiotics. Preventing certain treatments from being effective when they catch a disease that can be treated with these first-line antibiotics.
A few months ago, the European Parliament voted a text prohibiting collective antibiotic treatments preventive measures in farms. But negotiations on this subject with each of the member states will not start until 2017. And Great Britain, which has opted for Brexit, could quite simply no longer feel concerned by this limitation of the use of veterinary antibiotics. .
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