By Clifford Stanley

PUBLIC health professionals and agricultural officials from Guyana and six other primary production countries in the Caribbean are undergoing training on Anti Microbial Resistance (AMR) in food-producing animals which occurs  when harmful bacteria becomes resistant to drugs designed to cure or prevent infections in  livestock.The training occurs against a backdrop of international concern about growing levels of AMR by disease and infection-causing microorganisms in poultry and livestock  which have been found to render traditional antibiotics and other treatment less effective and sometimes totally useless, the local office of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) disclosed.
With AMR, resistant microorganisms (including bacteria, fungi, viruses and parasites) are able to withstand attack by antibiotics, so that standard treatments become ineffective and infections persist, increasing the risk of spread to others.
A few infections in food-producing animals become completely untreatable due to AMR.
From an animal-production perspective, the undesirable outcomes of AMR are the failure of disease control programmes or clinical recovery for food producing animals, increased severity of diseases, prolonged morbidity, increased mortality, reduced productivity, higher risks of disease spread in animal populations, and increased costs to society as a whole, an official explained.
As a result of this, AMR has, in recent years, become a major global public health concern and food safety issue, with serious implications for international trade and commerce.
The training on AMR is being executed by IICA, and is being funded by the European Union 10th EDF Sanitary Phyto-Sanitary (SPS) Project.
Phase I of the Capacity Building of Public Sector Professionals on the threat of AMR was done during the months of July and December, 2015 by experts at  the Department of Veterinary Preventive Medicine at The Ohio State University College of Veterinary Medicine.
Public health and agricultural officials from Guyana and six primary production countries in the Caribbean, namely, Belize, Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname, Barbados,  The Dominican Republic and, Jamaica participated.
This training was specially designed and customized for official veterinarians, diagnosticians, epidemiologists and other public health professionals from different countries in the Caribbean.
A main objective was to help these professionals to understand the emergence and epidemiology of AMR in food producing animals and agriculture in general  and its impact on the health of humans, animals and the environment, as well as on international trade and commerce.:
An imminent phase of the project, Phase II, will comprise Pilot Studies on Pre-Harvest and Retail Poultry to determine baseline Salmonella  bacteria prevalence and the AMR resistance profile of this disease in primary poultry production countries in the Caribbean.
The overall purpose will be to establish a baseline in regards to  the salmonella pathogen and its related AMR  while expanding the laboratory capacity and expertise in each respective country.
Another   main goal  is to develop a multi-country pilot project as the first step to contribute to  the establishment of a Regional AMR surveillance system in Agriculture for the Caribbean.
It has been noted also that  inappropriate use of antibiotics for treatment and prevention of diseases in food production  animals can lead to the emergence and spread of  drug resistant microorganisms.
There will also  be a focus on appropriate policies and strategies to regulate the authorization of antimicrobial drugs, to control the quality and usage of antimicrobials, to monitor quantities of veterinary drugs used, and to regulate the manufacture, importation, and distribution of drugs  with the aim of lessening the risk of AMR, the local  IICA office disclosed.