the study of the antibiotic consumption pattern in the production of animal originated food in iran and its comparison to other countries

background: antibiotics are an important class of drugs which are commonly used in veterinary for therapeutic, prophylactic and growth promotion purposes. antibiotic consumption may leave some residues in livestock food products leading to human health problems as well as failure in fermentation processing. the objective of this study was to investigate the antibiotic consumption pattern in animal farms in iran. method: a cross sectional study was designed in charmahal- bakhtiary province of iran in 2011, a questioner has been developed by naming 112 antibiotics. nine veterinary clinicians, 13 pharmacists and 3 livestock pharmaceutical distributor companies were included in the study. subjects were asked to score each indicated antibiotic in to 1-5, based on their consumption order. the veterinary organization of iran was asked on the total amounts of different forms of antibiotic drugs, used in 2010. the data on the livestock production in 2010 including meat, milk and egg was taken from the official web site belonging to agriculture ministry of iran. in order to obtain the same information from other countries, related official websites as well as scientific literature were used. the data was analyzed by spss software. findings: the antibiotic consumption factor (cf) of animal foods was obtained as 107.4 mg/kg for both milk and meat and 249.5 mg/kg for chicken and egg respectively. it was estimated that 133 mg antibiotic substances was used per kg of milk, meat and egg produced in 2010in iran which is quiet higher than that of the compared countries. conclusion: the findings of the present study would be informative for the legislative authorities in food security and safety. more detailed evolution should be carried out as well as implementation of national monitoring inspective programs in order to provide the larger margin of safety for animal originated foods.