Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to tackle the increase in human campylobacter cases, caught from infected poultry, which are proving to be resistant to the key antibiotic ciprofloxacin.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a major public health concern and a global challenge. The United Kingdom Government has established a 5 year AMR strategy (2013-2018) which sets out our actions to slow the development and spread of AMR. A copy of the UK Five Year Antimicrobial Resistance Strategy 2013 to 2018 is attached.

The Government supports industry initiatives on the responsible use of antibiotics, such as those implemented by the British Poultry Council, who introduced a voluntary ban on the use of cephalosporins and fluoroquinolones in poultry in January 2012. This action will in the long-term help reduce the development of resistance in bacteria including campylobacter in poultry.

Campylobacter is the leading cause of infectious intestinal disease in people in the UK and poultry meat is considered to be the main source of these infections. To address this, the Food Standards Agency has worked closely with industry in reducing campylobacter levels in chicken and is tackling this issue throughout the food chain; this has included improved biosecurity measures on farm, interventions such as blast surface chilling or additional heat steps during processing, the introduction of leak-proof packaging at retail and advice for consumers on safe handling of raw chickens within the home. These approaches are expected to reduce the number of campylobacter infections in humans.