The routine use of antimicrobials in meat production has been identified as a driver of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in both animals and humans. Significant knowledge gaps exist on antibiotic use practices in farming, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. This paper sought to generate in-depth understanding of household antibiotic use practices in food animals in urban- and peri-urban Blantyre. We used a qualitative research methodology focusing on households that kept scavenging animals and those engaged in small-scale intensive farming of food animals. Methods used were: medicine-use surveys with 130 conducted with a range of households; in-depth interviews (32) with a range of participants including farmers, community based veterinary health workers and veterinary shop workers; and stakeholder interviews (17) with policy makers, regulators, and academics. Six months of ethnographic fieldwork was also undertaken, with households engaged in farming, veterinary officers and veterinary stores. Our findings suggest antibiotic use in animals was more common in households that used small-scale intensive farming techniques, but rare in households that did not. For farmers engaged in small-scale intensive farming, antibiotics were often considered vital to remain solvent in a precarious economic and social environment, with limited access to veterinary services. A complex regulatory framework governed the import, prescription, and administration of antibiotics. Veterinary stores provided easy access to antibiotics, including colistin, an antibiotic on the WHO's critically important antibiotics for human health. Our work suggests that the high dependence on antibiotics for small-scale intensive farming may contribute to the growth of drug resistant infections in Malawi. The socio-economic drivers of antibiotic use mean that interventions need to take a holistic approach to address the high dependence on antibiotics. Key interventions could include improving farmers' access to affordable veterinary services, providing information about appropriate antibiotic use including withdrawal periods and feed supplementation, as well as improvements in regulation (nationally and internationally) and enforcement of current regulations. Taken together these approaches could lead to antibiotic use being optimised in feed animals.

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Drug resistant infections are increasing across the world and urgent action is required to preserve current classes of antibiotics. Antibiotic use practices in low-and-middle-income countries have gained international attention, especially as antibiotics are often accessed beyond the formal health system. Public awareness campaigns have gained popularity, often conceptualising antimicrobial resistance (AMR) as a problem of excess, precipitated by irrational behaviour. Insufficient attention has been paid to people’s lived experiences of accessing medicines in low-income contexts. In Chikwawa District, Malawi, a place of extreme scarcity, our study aimed to understand the care and medicine use practices of households dependent on subsistence farming. Adopting an anthropological approach, we undertook medicine interviews (100), ethnographic fieldwork (six-month period) and key informant interviews (33) with a range of participants in two villages in rural Chikwawa. The most frequently used drugs were cotrimoxazole and amoxicillin, not considered to be of critical importance to human health. Participants recognised that keeping, sharing, and buying medicines informally was not the “right thing.” However, they described using antibiotics and other medicines in these ways due to conditions of extreme precarity, the costs and limitations of seeking formal care in the public sector, and the inevitability of future illness. Our findings emphasise the need in contexts of extreme scarcity to equip policy actors with interventions to address AMR through strengthening health systems, rather than public awareness campaigns that foreground overuse and the dangers of using antibiotics beyond the formal sector.

Drug resistant infections are increasing across the world and urgent action is required to preserve current classes of antibiotics. Antibiotic use practices in low-and-middle-income countries have gained international attention, especially as antibiotics are often accessed beyond the formal health system. Public awareness campaigns have gained popularity, often conceptualising antimicrobial resistance (AMR) as a problem of excess, precipitated by irrational behaviour. Insufficient attention has been paid to people’s lived experiences of accessing medicines in low-income contexts. In Chikwawa District, Malawi, a place of extreme scarcity, our study aimed to understand the care and medicine use practices of households dependent on subsistence farming. Adopting an anthropological approach, we undertook medicine interviews (100), ethnographic fieldwork (six-month period) and key informant interviews (33) with a range of participants in two villages in rural Chikwawa. The most frequently used drugs were cotrimoxazole and amoxicillin, not considered to be of critical importance to human health. Participants recognised that keeping, sharing, and buying medicines informally was not the “right thing.” However, they described using antibiotics and other medicines in these ways due to conditions of extreme precarity, the costs and limitations of seeking formal care in the public sector, and the inevitability of future illness. Our findings emphasise the need in contexts of extreme scarcity to equip policy actors with interventions to address AMR through strengthening health systems, rather than public awareness campaigns that foreground overuse and the dangers of using antibiotics beyond the formal sector.