Superbug bacteria that has evolved to be resistant to widely-used antibiotics has been found in people, animals and food across the European Union.

Resistance to two last-resort antibiotics was also detected at low-levels for the first time in animals and food, during annual monitoring for an EU-wide report into antimicrobial resistance in bacteria.

The two last-resort medicines are usually only used to treat patients who are infected with multi-drug resistant superbugs.

A total of 25,000 people die from superbugs in the EU every year, according to the report by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).

Disease and safety experts have warned that superbugs pose a serious threat to both public and animal health across the EU.


Image: Experts say antibiotics must be used responsibly to stop superbugs spreading

"Antimicrobial resistance is an alarming threat putting human and animal health in danger," said Vytenis Andriukaitis, the EU's health and food safety commissioner.

"We have put substantial efforts to stop its rise, but this is not enough.

"We must be quicker, stronger and act on several fronts."

Antibiotic resistance is caused when antibiotics are overused or misused, encouraging bacteria to survive and find new ways of beating the medicines.

The report found that multi-drug resistance is high across the EU in Salmonella bacteria.

The ECDC's chief scientist, Mike Catchpole, said he was particularly concerned that some common types of Salmonella in humans are showing extremely high multi-drug resistances.

"Prudent use of antibiotics in human and veterinary medicine is extremely important," he said.

"We all have a responsibility to ensure that antibiotics keep working."

There was geographical variation in the levels of multi-drug resistant bacteria across the EU.

Countries in northern and western Europe have lower resistance levels than countries in the south and the east.

Experts said this was likely due to differences in the level of use and overuse of antibiotics in different countries.