Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has traditionally been addressed through antimicrobial stewardship, infection control, and better prescribing. These measures remain essential, but animal-disease systems are increasingly exposed to pressures that do not fit within a single sector. A new editorial published in Animal Diseases (DOI: 10.1186/s44149-026-00255-5) places animal diseases at the center of this emerging risk, arguing that warming, floods, intensive farming, wastewater, and food systems can connect resistant bacteria across animals, environments, and people.
Using non-typhoidal Salmonella as a sentinel, the article sets out a One Health framework for understanding how climate pressures may weaken ecological barriers that once helped contain antimicrobial resistance. Rising temperatures can favor bacterial growth and horizontal gene transfer, while extreme precipitation can disperse antimicrobial resistance genes (ARGs) through agricultural runoff, sewage, rivers, and food chains. Zoonotic pathogens such as Salmonella move naturally across these interfaces, making them useful indicators of wider human–animal–environment risks.
The editorial's central contribution is a practical risk map describing a One Health–climate convergence nexus in which non-typhoidal Salmonella and ARGs circulate among hospitals, intensive agriculture, sewage treatment systems, watersheds, farms, food products, and retail environments. Climate change can intensify this loop through heat-related physiological effects on bacteria and weather-driven movement of contaminated water.
A companion global genomic study published in The Lancet Planetary Health provides the empirical backbone for this warning. Researchers analyzed 488,232 Salmonella genomes from 139 countries across 1940–2023 and found that global average ARG abundance increased by 38%. Climate change was associated with a 10% rise in ARG abundance, with increases in 82 of 100 countries analyzed. Future modeling suggested that low-emission pathways, when combined with strengthened antibiotic stewardship, could reduce Salmonella ARGs by 24% compared with high-emission scenarios.
The authors call for a shift from reacting to resistant infections to anticipating where risks may intensify. They argue that antimicrobial stewardship should be paired with climate data, animal-health monitoring, and environmental surveillance. Veterinary services can use climate signals to identify high-risk periods for disease outbreaks. Public-health agencies can connect genomic surveillance with rainfall, temperature, wastewater, livestock, and antimicrobial-use data. Food-safety systems can strengthen monitoring after floods and heat waves that may mobilize resistant bacteria.
For low- and middle-income countries, the paper highlights the need for affordable sequencing, trained personnel, and fair data-sharing agreements. The work suggests that climate mitigation, animal health, sanitation, and antibiotic stewardship should be treated as one interconnected investment in global health security, especially in regions where climate vulnerability and AMR burden overlap.
