
==== Front
New Microbes New Infect
New Microbes New Infect
New Microbes and New Infections
2052-2975
Elsevier

S2052-2975(24)00251-8
10.1016/j.nmni.2024.101467
101467
Letter to the Editor
Integrating wildlife within national action plan for antimicrobial resistance
Saied AbdulRahman A. saied_abdelrahman@yahoo.com

Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, Aswan Office, Aswan, 81511, Egypt
22 8 2024
12 2024
22 8 2024
62 10146716 8 2024
19 8 2024
20 8 2024
© 2024 The Author
2024
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Keywords

Antimicrobial resistance
Wildlife
National action plan
One Health approach
Multidrug-resistant bacteria
Handling Editor: Patricia Schlagenhauf
==== Body
pmcDear Editor,

Across the One Health approach, antimicrobial resistance (AMR) poses a threat to human, animal, and environmental health. Surveillance of the use of antibiotics and providing necessary medications, vaccines, and diagnostics for both humans and animals in a way that is equitable, affordable, and sustainable with reforming agrifood systems to drastically improve animal health and wellbeing while using fewer antibiotics [1] are crucial strategies for tackling this silent pandemic; however, some countries lack surveillance of antimicrobial use (AMU) pertaining to animals, such as in Singapore [2]. Governments should fund incentive schemes that would in turn boost the market for novel antibiotics, encouraging pharmaceutical companies to continue producing antibiotics [1].

AMR is a leading cause of global mortality and a significant health concern for humans and domestic animals [3]. Therefore, the national action plan (NAP) is a state-wide strategy to curb AMR issues within its borders that necessitates a sustainable financing. The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that just 24 % of countries report successfully implementing their NAPs, even though the fact that over 90 % of countries have developed them. This is mostly due to a lack of finance. Merely 10 % of them acknowledge allocating specific funds to their NAPs [1].

Although the global circulation of AMR in wildlife has already been documented, it is still unclear how this circulation may affect public health and what policies should be taken to curb it. The lack of emphasis on the environment in national action plans for AMR management and prevention reflects this knowledge gap [3]. Yang and colleagues [4] have highlighted in their correspondence that previous studies on Klebsiella infection have not included wild animals because of their limited contact with humans, despite their potential as a source of infection. They also emphasized the recent surge of multidrug-resistant K pneumoniae in wildlife suggests that wild animals may play a role in spreading resistant genes. Additionally, Larsen and colleagues found specific lineages of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in European hedgehogs. It occurred as a co-evolutionary response to S. aureus colonizing infected hedgehogs with the dermatophyte Trichophyton erinacei, which produces two β-lactam antibiotics [5]. This finding suggests that wild animals may have served as sentinels for the evolution of clinically relevant antibiotic-resistance genes.

International organizations argued for coordinated, cross-sectoral, and multidisciplinary collaboration across the sectors of human, animal, plant, and environmental health in response to the growing threat of drug-resistant bacteria [1]. In addition, the Quadripartite (FAO, WHO, OIE, and UNEP) advocates the One Health approach within national action plans and integrates wildlife into cross-sectoral initiatives to improve the AMR response. Experts in wildlife ecology, management, veterinary, microbiology, agriculture, social sciences, and public health, can put transdisciplinary solutions for AMR prevention and control in wildlife as a complex, public health issue [3].

While many countries have adopted the One Health approach to reduce AMR, wildlife surveillance is hardly ever included in their national action plans. Six of the 44 European countries and one of the 22 Latin American countries with national action plans have integrated wildlife into their national action programs for antimicrobial resistance. However, implementing such a step hasn't achieved what is required and expected [3]. Austria and Ireland have taken pioneering steps for AMR surveillance in wildlife. While wildlife was only mentioned in the introduction parts of the NAPs for Italy, Switzerland, and Costa Rica, their NAPs do not appear to prioritize wildlife surveillance in the upcoming years.

Ultimately, incorporating wildlife into national action plans, policies, and strategies is necessary to enhance infection prevention and control and track the use of antibiotics within wildlife rescue and rehabilitation centers, veterinary hospitals, and clinics, as well as to understand the factors related to spread of resistant bacteria and genes within wildlife and the development of antimicrobial resistance.

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Ethics approval and consent to participle

Not applicable.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Availability of data and material

Not applicable.

Provenance and peer review

Not commissioned, externally peer reviewed.

CRediT authorship contribution statement

AbdulRahman A. Saied: Conceptualization, Data curation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing.

Declaration of competing interest

The author declares that he has no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
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References

1 CIDRAP. Groups call for “actionable steps” to address antimicrobial resistance https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/antimicrobial-stewardship/groups-call-actionable-steps-address-antimicrobial-resistance#:∼:text=The%20document%20from%20the%20AMR,present%20and%20future%20in%20which 2024
2 Chua A.Q. Verma M. Villanueva S.Y.A. Roxas E. Hsu L.Y. Legido-Quigley H. A qualitative study on the implementation of the national action plan on antimicrobial resistance in Singapore Antibiotics 12 2023 1258 10.3390/antibiotics12081258 37627680
3 Benavides J.A. Salgado-Caxito M. Torres C. Godreuil S. Public health implications of antimicrobial resistance in wildlife at the one health interface Med. Sci. Forum 25 2024 1 10.3390/msf2024025001
4 Yang Y. Jiang X. Zheng B. Xu H. Liu W. Emergence of multidrug-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae in wild animals in Africa The Lancet Microbe 2024 10.1016/S2666-5247(23)00403-2
5 Larsen J. Raisen C.L. Ba X. Sadgrove N.J. Padilla-González G.F. Simmonds M.S.J. Emergence of methicillin resistance predates the clinical use of antibiotics Nature 602 2022 135 141 10.1038/s41586-021-04265-w 34987223
