Role of veterinary medicine in public health: antibiotic use in food animals and humans and the effect on evolution of antibacterial resistance.

Veterinary public health is another frontier in the fight against human disease. The veterinary public health scope includes the control and eradication of zoonoses, diseases that are naturally transmitted between vertebrate animals and man. These diseases pose a continuous hazard to the health and welfare of the public. More than 100 diseases are categorized as zoonoses, including salmonellosis. It is important to understand how antibiotics are used in humans and in food animals and how these uses affect the evolution of antibacterial resistance. Appropriate use of antibiotics for food animals will preserve the long-term efficacy of existing antibiotics, support animal health and welfare, and limit the risk of transfer of antibiotic resistance to humans. An understanding of the epidemiology of antimicrobial resistance allows development of preventive strategies to limit existing resistance and to avoid emergence of new strains of resistant bacteria. Risk assessments are being used by the Center for Veterinary Medicine at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as regulatory tools to assess potential risk to humans resulting from antibiotic use in food-producing animals and to then develop microbial safety policies to protect the public health. The veterinary public health scope, in addition to the control and eradication of zoonoses, also includes the development and supervision of food hygiene practices, laboratory and research activities, and education of the public. Thus, it may be seen that there are many ways in which veterinary medicine plays a very important role in public health.