Infectious disease specialists are demanding a more rigorous system of testing Australian and imported foods to halt the spread of drug-resistant bacteria.

Currently there are no Australian food standards covering so-called superbugs and while imported food is inspected, it is not tested for antimicrobial-resistant bacteria.

"If a lot of us are taking these superbugs through our mouth, because they're either in imported foods or domestic foods, that's a problem because we've got a time bomb waiting to go off in some of us," Professor Peter Collignon, the director of infectious diseases at Canberra Hospital, told Lateline.

The Federal Government is currently reviewing the way Australia monitors resistant bacteria and antibiotic use in animals within Australia.

"So far in this country we do reasonably testing for drugs in the form of antibiotics, but we don't do superbug testing and we need to do that both for domestic and imported products," Professor Collignon said.

Professor Peter Collignon, director of infectious diseases at Canberra Hospital, is concerned at the risk of posed by superbugs from food.

Doctors at Melbourne's Austin Hospital say they are dealing with more and more superbug infections, which they attribute to food.

"This has changed the way we do a lot of our surgical procedures," Professor Lindsay Grayson, Austin’s director of infectious diseases, said.

He is particularly concerned about the lack of superbug testing on imported food.

"The tsunami on the horizon is this growing use of antibiotics in food production overseas," he said.

Antibiotic use in food production and the bacterial resistance it creates is a global concern.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the US says antibiotic use to promote growth in food-producing animals should be phased out.

Both experts are particularly concerned about raw imported seafood.

However, Australia's Seafood Importers Association has rejected their concerns, stressing that seafood imports have a high compliance rate with current food standards.

Veterinary pharmacologist Stephen Page specialises in food safety and has consulted for the poultry industry.

He says consumers should not be panicking.

"Overall, I don't see any crisis or any evidence of a signal that people should be overly alarmed or concerned," he said.

Mr Page says biosecurity measures as well as the cooking process reduces the risk of people becoming infected.

"Some foods like fish are classified as risk foods, which means every consignment of that food that's imported into Australia has to be inspected and has to be tested," he said.

"They're not specifically looking for resistance but they're just looking for the presence of the bugs. The likelihood that some of them are multiple resistant or superbugs is probably going to be very low."

The findings of the government review are due to be delivered in the middle of next year.