France bans imports of poultry from animals on antibiotics

10-03-2022 | Health | News

From 22 April, France will no longer permit the import of poultry and other meat from animals treated with growth antibiotics. Photo: Mark Pasveer

In a decree that will affect the poultry market, primarily, France announces the ban of animal meat imports treated with growth antibiotics as of 22 April.

Reuters reports that France is anticipating an EU-wide measure that had been due to enter into force late January but was delayed by missing legislation on sanitary checks, the farm ministry said in a statement.

A French farm ministry official noted that poultry would, by far, be the biggest market affected by the ban, which will be effective on 22 April, giving the poultry sector 2 months to obtain an assurance from their suppliers that meat does not come from breeding using growth antibiotics, and to modify their supply chain if needed.

In 2021, France imported approximately 45% of the chicken it consumed, including both EU and non-EU origins, Reuters reports the French poultry industry group, Anvol, as saying. It added that Anvol welcomed France’s move but said the ban would only be effective when implemented EU-wide since a lot of imports transit through the port of Rotterdam.

The EU imports poultry primarily from Brazil, Thailand and Ukraine.

France has also recently outlawed the culling of male day-old chicks, as recently reported by Poultry World.

Drug-resistant bacterial infections – over a million people died in 2019
According to the Global Research on Antimicrobial Resistance report, published in The Lancet, a study that analysed data from 204 countries and territories revealed that, in 2019, antimicrobial resistance was directly responsible for an estimated 1.27 million deaths and associated with about 4.95 million deaths.
“Global health officials have repeatedly warned about the rise of drug-resistant bacteria and other microbes due to the misuse and overuse of antibiotics, which encourages microorganisms to evolve into ’superbugs’,” reported Reuters.
The platform reports that Chris Murray, co-author of the study and a professor at the University of Washington, said: “Previous estimates had predicted 10 million annual deaths from AMR by 2050, but we now know for certain that we are already far closer to that figure than we thought.”
In 2021, the World Health Organization warned that none of the 43 antibiotics in development or recently approved medicines were enough to combat antimicrobial resistance.