Poultry body denies excessive use of antibiotics

The Poultry Federation and the National Egg Coordination have refuted claims that chicken and poultry products contain high antibiotic residue.

A recent report from the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) pointed out that chicken and poultry products had been found to contain antibiotic residue, paving the way for growing resistance to antibiotics in humans.

Reacting to the report, federation members today said while the presence of antibiotics in chicken legs was at acceptable levels, there wasn't any widespread usage of antibiotics including oxytetracycline, chlortetracycline, enrofloxacin, ciprofloxacin and neomycin in the country, as detailed by the CSC in its report.

The pollution monitoring lab at CSE had tested 70 samples of chickens in Delhi and the National Capital Region-36 from Delhi, 12 from Noida, eight from Gurgaon and seven each from Ghaziabad and Faridabad.

"Ninety nine per cent of disease management is being done through healthy farm practices and most of the players have been inducting the grand parents of chicken with improved genetics in the country," the federation said.

Further, it said, as most of the Indian poultry diseases are viral, farmers do not employ antibiotics in 95 per cent of treatment cases.