Spreading antibiotics in food - a public threat to the community

However, farmers did not know how the returned products were used. Or did the business use all these products for the domestic market and poison Vietnamese consumers? 
Too much antibiotics on livestock Not only aquaculture, livestock farms have also been using excessive antibiotics. Mr Nguyen Thanh Son, the owner of an industrial poultry farm in  Vinh Cuu, Dong Nai, admitted that the farms usually store antibiotics to feed the chickens scheduled as well as handle if there was spreading diseases.“Using antibiotics regularly makes the animals’ health worse and dependent on antibiotics, thus making it impossible to stop using them. If the farm stops antibiotics, it will go bankrupt” Mr Son said.

Many farmers affirmed that using antibiotics in livestock production is expected because the environment in Vietnam is full of diseases. Not only buying drugs to use according to instructions, but many farm owners also buy concentrated antibiotics to dilute for animal treatment diseases because the drugs on the market are not “strong” enough. Antibiotics are allowed to trade freely without the control of authorities. Farmers are buying human medicine to treat animals. The feed manufacturers also put antibiotics on their products. “There were several foreign companies not using antibiotics, but they could not compete with antibiotics feed, so they also followed. “The purposes of putting antibiotics in the feed products are to prevent diseases for animals and use them as growth parameters”, a marketing director of veterinary medicines in Ho Chi Minh City said. Professor La Van Kinh, director of Southern Animal Husbandry Sub-Institute, indicated that using antibiotics in livestock production was common because of people's habits; when there were problems with animal health, they chose the most straightforward way to use antibiotics. Besides, buying and selling antibiotics in Vietnam is too easy, which makes people encouraged to use these drugs instead of focusing on disease prevention and nutritional balance to improve animal health and reduce costs. “Many farmers use too much antibiotics but have no idea or do not care that the residues in products seriously affect the consumers’ health”, Prof. Kinh said. Threats to all Vietnamese health Speaking at the forum “Management of banned substances and combating the abuse of antibiotics in livestock" in Binh Duong, Mr Nguyen Van Viet, chief inspector of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, affirmed, "in terms of scale and impact harmful, antibiotics used in animal husbandry are much more dangerous than lean substances.” Antibiotics, including banned ones for livestock, are still used in all animals: swine, poultry and ruminants. “While under 10% of pigs use lean substances, almost livestock farms use antibiotics. This is a high risk affecting the entire nation's health if there is no control.” Mr Viet said.


An agricultural report showed that up to 75% of antibiotics in livestock are imported from China but are not strictly controlled for consumption. The licensing of imported antibiotics and the management of antibiotics are two separate stages; therefore, importing prohibited/restricted antibiotics is still too complicated to control. A Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development leader admitted that, in principle, importers could only sell antibiotic materials to veterinary drug manufacturers to produce drugs for the livestock industry. However, companies can still sell them directly to dealers and farmers. Along with advising people to use antibiotics in livestock and aquaculture responsibly, create antibiotic maps before use and limit antibiotic residues in products, the Department of Animal Health said that they would propose relevant authorities to focus on inspecting and examining the import and abuse of antibiotics. The Department of Animal Health and the relevant authorities need to strictly control the import source and the use of antibiotics such as Nitrofuran (banned in livestock and aquaculture), Enrofloxacin (prohibited in livestock and aquaculture), Tetracycline and Oxytetracycline (limited use in livestock and aquaculture).

With the desire to bring benefits to the whole society, TVOne Vietnam has successfully researched and developed additives for animal feed from plant origin. They can completely replace antibiotics in livestock. Products consist of precious medicinal herbs grown in medicinal plant areas across the country and modern advanced production technology. TVOne believes these products can contribute to the sustainable and clean development of the animal feed industry.