New danger from farm superbugs

Superbugs that render antibiotics useless and threaten human health have been found in British farm animals, a study has revealed.

All livestock, but particularly pigs, can carry the bugs, new strains of E.coli and campylobacter, which are immune to normal medicines and infect humans through contaminated food or water.

Concerns are also growing that as the bugs become more resistant to antibiotics, so humans will as well, negating the effects of a range of drugs. At the root of the problem is the mass use of antibiotics on factory farms.

The report by the Department of Food and Rural Affairs found superbugs which are immune to some of the most widely used antibiotics, including ciprofloxacin. A similar antibiotic is widely used on chickens and pigs and now 13 per cent of campylobacter food poisoning cases can no longer be treated with ciprofloxacin.

Campylobacter can cause blood-poisoning, paralysis and death. It was carried by 94.5 per cent of the 13 million pigs slaughtered in the UK in the past 12 months.