A brief report on ICAR Sponsored Short Course entitled ‘Antimicrobial resistance to antibiotics in animals and its impact on human health’

Department of Veterinary Microbiology, F/O-VAS organized ICAR Sponsored Short Course entitled ‘Antimicrobial resistance to antibiotics in animals and its impact on human health’ during Feb 11-20, 2026. Prof Indranil Samanta, Head of the Department acted as course director and other teachers of the Department Prof SN Joardar, Dr Kunal Batabyal and Dr Samir Dey acted as core organizing committee members. In total 23 participants like Assistant Professors/ Scientists from TANUVAS (Chennai), SVVU (Tirupati), OUAT (Bhubaneswar), SKUAST-K (Srinagar, Kashmir), Kamdhenu University (Anand, Gujrat), NDVSU (Jabalpur, MP), ICMR-NIRBI (NICED, Kolkata), RRS-ICAR-CIFA, ERS-ICAR- NDRI, NB St. Xavier’s College, Assistant Director/Associate Project Director nominated by ARD, Government of West Bengal were actively present throughout the 10 days program. The experts were from diversified disciplines and Institute/University reflecting the multi- stakeholder nature of the issue, namely, LSHTM (UK), Kiel University (Germany), WHOCountry Office of India, IIT-Kharagpur, CAU-Aizawl, All India Institute of Public Health and Hygiene, ERS-ICAR-IVRI, ICAR-CIFA, Calcutta University, BCKV, West Bengal State University, MAKAUT, Vidyasagar University, Diamond Harbour Medical College, Independent human/poultry health consultants etc. The University dignitaries Dr TK Dutta, Honourable Vice-Chancellor, Prof P Das, Registrar, Prof S Batabyal, DREF, Prof N Ghosh, Dean-F/O VAS graced the inaugural/valedictory sessions with their motivational speech for the participants.

The experts opined during the short course that not only indiscriminate antibiotic usage in human or livestock, but also leakage of crude antimicrobials into the soil and water bodies from sewage / pharmaceutical effluents, polluted environment also acts as the source of ‘resistome’. One health approach with community engagement to change the people perception about antibiotic usage and dependency on the antibiotics, even when not required, is the utmost necessity for mitigation of antimicrobial resistance.