World Aquaculture Singapore 2022

November 29 - December 2, 2022

Singapore

ANTIMICROBIAL RESISTANCE IN AQUACULTURE AND ITS MITIGATION STRATEGIES

Ikhsan Natrah*, Sarmila Muthukrishnan, Norfarrah Mohamed Alipiah, Md Yasin Ina-Salwany, Chong Chou Min, Low Chen Fei and Norhariani Mohd Nor

 

Aquatic Animal Health and Therapeutics Laboratory, Institute Bioscience, Universiti Putra Malaysia, UPM, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia

 

 

 

*Corresponding author: natrah@upm.edu.my

 



Intensive farming increases stress on the host and introduces new diseases or pathogens to emerge. This scenario has increased the usage of antibiotics in aquaculture worldwide. Antimicrobial drugs can be very useful in combating pathogenic bacterial infections in humans and animals. However, it has negative implications as it increases the number of anti-microbial resistance (AMR) micro-organisms that can spread from animal to human by direct exposure or consumption of food containing AMR. In aquaculture systems, antibiotics are generally added in the feed or directly into the water system. Once, the antibiotics get into the water; it starts to disperse evenly by the aid of the paddlewheel aerators and impose a selective pressure, which eventually changes the ecosystem of the environment. Consequently, some bacteria increase their fitness in the new environment via intrinsic resistance or acquired resistance. In this paper, the threat and potential risk of AMR particularly in shrimp aquaculture will be discussed. This includes potential mitigation strategies to reduce AMR involving quorum quenching mechanisms and others.