HONG KONG: Secretary for Food and Health York Chow Yat-ngok pledges tighter monitoring and increased research funding after a University of Hong Kong (HKU) study indicated that the antibiotic abuse of food animals may have created drug-resistance among people in Hong Kong.

In the unpublished study led by Ho Pak Leung, an HKU microbiology associate professor, 64 faecal samples containing antibiotic-resistant E coli bacteria collected from food animals, 59 from healthy university students and children and 51 from female urethritis patients were analyzed.

The results showed that the E coli bacteria in 48.4 percent of the animals samples and 31.8 percent of the human samples are multiresistant "superbugs", the local Chinese newspaper Apple Daily reported.

Moreover, 84.8 percent of animal-carried superbugs and 50.9 percent of human-carried superbugs contain an "integron", a gene capture and dissemination system. The analysis found that 90 percent of the animal-carried and human-carried integrons are identical.

Apple Daily quoted Ho as saying this constitutes a piece of evidence that the drug-resistance has been transferred from the food animals to human beings. The transfer may occur when people consume meat that is not thoroughly cooked or cooked meat contaminated by raw meat during the cooking, Ho said.

Superbugs in meat are not directly responsible for causing illnesses in people, but they may reshuffle genes with E coli inside human intestines and create human-carried superbugs. The superbugs then may cause infections of the urinary tract, the bladder, the prostate and kidney that are very difficult to cure, he told the newspaper.

No figures are available on how many people have died from E coli superbugs in Hong Kong. But it's believed 40 percent of the urinary tract infection are related to antibiotic-resistant E coli bacteria, Ho added.

Chow, who was in Beijing to attend an anti-smoking conference, told reporters that several studies have been conducted on the use of antibiotics at local farms.

As for pork and chicken imported from the mainland, where the antibiotic abuse is believed to be more widespread, Chow said the suppliers are required to provide a list of drugs used on the animals. Mainland authorities also check the antibiotic residue in meat before export.

The mainland is Hong Kong's main source of food animals, supplying 20,000 chickens and thousands of pigs daily. Nevertheless, "the problem should not be taken lightly," he said.

The Hong Kong food safety authorities will step up monitoring and provide more research fund on the subject, Chow told reporters yesterday.

A spokesperson with the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department said last night that the department sends inspectors on a regular basis to check on animal farms on the mainland.

China Daily

(HK Edition 10/13/2009 page1)