On Thursday, senior veterinary and medical officials will attend a high-level conference, held at the Royal Society, focusing on the need to prevent antimicrobial resistance and preserve effective medicines for animals and humans.

At the event, which will be hosted by the UK’s chief medical officer and Defra’s chief vet, experts, academics and ambassadors from around the world will discuss:

• antibiotic resistance and the link between human and animal health
• farming practices
• barriers to improved practice
• the need to build on the successful surveillance networks already in place

Government ministers including the farming minister, George Eustice, will also address the meeting and the Prince of Wales will also attend the meeting, which is one in a series that will lead up to the UN General Assembly meeting on antimicrobial resistance in New York in September.

The conference comes in the wake of alarming discoveries about the scale of antibiotic resistance around the world. Late last year, scientists reporting in medical journal The Lancet revealed they had discovered bacteria with readily transferrable genes resistant to the last-resort polymyxin class of antibiotics during routine testing in China. In late December, further research revealed the resistant trait had spread further than previously thought, when it was detected in samples from European countries including the UK, some from several years ago. Experts said this brings the threat of ‘pan-resistant’ infections (ones which are literally untreatable with modern methods) a step closer.

If the rate at which resistance is developing continues, it has been estimated that by 2050 the world will face an additional 10 million deaths due to antibiotic resistant infections (costing the global economy $100).

Commenting ahead of the meeting, Chief Medical Officer, Professor Dame Sally Davies said, “When we use antibiotics inappropriately, we are increasing the opportunities for the bugs to develop resistance – the biggest threat to human health today. By cutting the inappropriate use of antibiotics in animals, as we are moving to do in humans, we will preserve our antibiotics for longer. This summit is an exciting step in building international support in the global fight against drug resistance.”

Defra’s Chief Veterinary Officer, Nigel Gibbens added, “Today’s conference not only highlights the need to tackle the significant and growing threat of antimicrobial resistance, but also the international commitment to tackling it. It’s only by working together that we can reduce the development of AMR. We need to minimise disease risks in animals, enable accurate diagnosis and ensure that when animals do get sick they can be treated in a way that does not put human health at risk.”

Emma Rose, spokesperson for the Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics, a coalition of farming, welfare and environment charities, commented, “In December 2015 the UK government’s Review on Antimicrobial Resistance highlighted the strength of the scientific evidence between farm antibiotic use and human antibiotic resistance, and stated that this warrants significant reductions to farm-use of antibiotics.

“Today’s meeting provides an opportunity for the debate on farm antibiotics to move beyond the rhetoric around ‘responsible use’ and to shift the focus on to how we make these reductions in practice – and fast. It is imperative such measures include a ban on the routine preventative mass-medication of groups of animals via their feed or water. This is still par-for-the-course in the UK and Europe, particularly in the pig and poultry sectors. Today’s event must conclude that such practices have no place in any serious strategy to tackle human drug resistance."