Some farmers sprinkle antibiotic medicine onto their fish and prawn stocks that are kept inside floating baskets either in enclosed ponds or natural waterways, a practice that poses the dual threat of drug resistance in consumers and environmental pollution, experts at Chulalongkorn University said on Monday.

Global consumption of antibiotics has soared since the year 2000, stoking calls for new policies to rein in usage -- and fueling fears that the worldwide threat posed by drug-resistant superbugs will spiral out of control, researchers say.