In animal husbandry, antimicrobial agents have been administered as supplements to increase production over the last 60 years. Large-scale animal production has increased the importance of antibiotic management because it may favor the evolution of antimicrobial resistance and select resistant strains. Brazil is a significant producer and exporter of animal-derived food. Although Brazil is still preparing a national surveillance plan, several changes in legislation and timely programs have been implemented. Thus, Brazilian data on antimicrobial resistance in bacteria associated with animals come from official programs and the scientific community. This review aims to update and discuss the available Brazilian data on this topic, emphasizing legal aspects, incidence, and genetics of the resistance reported by studies published since 2009, focusing on farm animals and derived foods with the most global public health impact. Studies are related to poultry, cattle, and pigs, and mainly concentrate on non-typhoid Salmonella, Escherichia coli, and Staphylococcus aureus. We also describe legal aspects of antimicrobial use in this context; and the current occurrence of genetic elements associated with resistance to beta-lactams, colistin, and fluoroquinolones, among other antimicrobial agents. Data here presented may be useful to provide a better understanding of the Brazilian status on antimicrobial resistance related to farm animals and animal-derived food products.

LEPTOSPIROSIS is an important zoonotic bacterial infection of livestock that causes abortions, stillbirths, infertility and reduction of milk production, determining economic hazards. Cattle act as the maintenance host of serovar Hardjo (serogroup serjoe), which is the most common strain of Leptospira in many rural regions (Hernández-Rodríguez and others 2011). The standard serological diagnosis of leptospirosis is the microscopic agglutination test (MAT), which is recommended for use on a herd-screening basis (Lilenbaum and others 2009). Since leptospiral cultivation is laborious and time-consuming, other methods have been applied for the direct identification of leptospires (Marianelli and others 2007). PCR is increasingly being reported as a rapid and definitive diagnostic tool in many species, such as buffaloes (Marianelli and others 2007), small ruminants (Lilenbaum and others 2009) and cattle (Hernández-Rodríguez and others 2011). The aim of the present study was to compare the use of MAT and PCR for the diagnosis of leptospirosis in cattle. Three dairy herds (A, B and C) from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, with high levels of reproductive failure, …