The FAO-implemented and Republic of Korea-funded Action to support implementation of Codex AMR texts - or ACT - project is being implemented in six countries. One of the project countries is Nepal, where the significant poultry sector, which contributes four percent to the country’s gross domestic product, is thought to be one of the main drivers of foodborne antimicrobial resistance (AMR), as a result of the overuse and misuse of antibiotics. Expenditure on antimicrobials is rapidly increasing in the sector, with 46 percent of veterinary drugs prescribed by paraprofessionals who have no adequate training.
One of the main objectives of the ACT project is to establish and strengthen integrated surveillance of foodborne AMR in order for countries to be able to measure, collect, collate, validate, analyse and interpret data to better understand the threat of AMR throughout the food chain. In Nepal, the ACT project is supporting an AMR surveillance study in the poultry value chain in the Chitwan district, that integrates data gathering and analysis by both the food sector and the animal health sector. Chitwan is the district with the highest broiler production (5.3 million; 10 percent) of The study started from 31 August 2024 and will continue until the end of January 2025.
As part of this initiative, training exercises will strengthen capacities for routine and systematic testing of bacterial susceptibility to antimicrobials among laboratory personnel, and evidence-based data - from feed industries, farms, hatcheries, slaughterhouses and food processing plants - will be obtained that will help the government to develop intervention plans and implement policies to support poultry enterprises, safeguard public health and ensure food safety.
“The animal health sector is committed in the containment and reduction of AMR, and this integrated approach for AMR surveillance will help us understand the status and linkage among the actors in the poultry value chain,” says the Director General of the Department of Livestock Services in Nepal, Dr Umesh Dahal.
Dr Matina Joshi Vaidya, the former Director-General of Nepal’s, Department of Food Technology and Quality Control, the department responsible for ACT project implementation in the country, comments that “Food safety is everyone business and we need to ACT together to fight foodborne AMR. The ACT project’s initiative has given us the opportunity to work together.”
As part of this exercise, the project will also train poultry stakeholders on biosecurity measures, good husbandry practices and hygiene and sanitation, which will lead to responsible and prudent antimicrobial use.
With the food and animal health sectors of Nepal coming together to tackle foodborne AMR surveillance, it is hoped this will drive other sectors to act together in a One Health approach, supporting the National Action Plan for AMR (NAP-AMR) in Nepal.
“The poultry business is supporting the economy,” says Mr Prakash Shrestha, a commercial broiler farmer and fresh house owner with 16 years of experience in the poultry business, “but it is a very competitive and complex business. There are very responsible and aware stakeholders, but with few effective programmes and encouraging alternatives supported by the government, there may be a lack of prudent and responsible use of antibiotics in the poultry industry. This kind of study should recommend the government on where and how to act to support the industries in the value chain.”
ACT in Nepal has made progress on other components of the Project, most notably on awareness raising, where the team has targeted youth and poultry entrepreneurs on the importance of adoption and implementation of Codex standards to contain foodborne AMR, and on the impact of AMR in the animal health, production system, public health and food safety.
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