November 13, 2017

 

 

A task force has set new targets for further reducing antibiotic use across the key UK livestock sectors.

 

The setting of new targets-with help from the Responsible Use of Medicines in Agriculture Alliance, or RUMA-comes after sales of antibiotics to treat and prevent disease in farm livestock have reached a record low, following a 27% reduction in antibiotic use over the past two years.

 

The "Targets Task Force" includes a leading veterinary surgeon and farmer from each of the beef, dairy, egg, fish, gamebird, pig, poultry meat and sheep sectors. The group also includes observers from regulators Food Standards Agency and Veterinary Medicines Directorate (VMD).

 

In the case of pigs, the reduction in use of antibiotics is targeted at over 60% by 2020, with minimal use of highest-priority critically important antibiotics (CIAs).

 

Data released in late October indicated a good start, with antibiotic usage in the pig sector declining around 35% between 2015 and 2016.

 

Targets Task Force member and Pig Veterinary Society President Mark White said the "significant" milestone had been reached in the first year of concerted efforts to reduce antibiotic use.

 

"It's encouraging to see the response in the sector to the challenge laid down, which bodes well for achieving our ambitious 2020 goal", he said.

 

"It is evident that the sector-steered mainly by the members of the Pig Veterinary Society, AHDB Pork and the National Pig Association-has the will and the capability to fully engage with the issue."

 

Improving water delivery

 

Next focus, he said, should be on eliminating routine preventive treatment, which is resorted to mainly due to lack of resource or expertise. "We can also work to improve water delivery systems so that more targeted treatment in the water can be used instead of in-feed medication", he added.

 

The poultry meat sector has ceased all preventive treatment and use of the highest-priority CIAs. It will now maintain current levels in chickens and look for further reductions in turkeys. This sector will also use clinical governance to ensure CIA antibiotics are only prescribed when absolutely needed and with sign off from veterinary specialists and management.

 

Poultry sector ends preventive treatment

 

The poultry meat sector has already reduced antibiotic use by 71% between 2012, when its stewardship scheme was introduced, and 2016.

 

In doing this, the sector has also ceased all preventive treatment and use of the highest-priority CIAs. It will now maintain current levels in chickens and look for further reductions in turkeys. This sector will use clinical governance to ensure CIA antibiotics are only prescribed when absolutely needed and with sign off from veterinary specialists and management.

 

The laying hen and fish sectors have similarly committed to continuing low use, with the laying hen sector eliminating all use of highest-priority CIAs in the past two years.

 

The development of a vaccine in the salmon sector several years ago successfully controlled one of its most challenging bacterial diseases, so the focus has turned to the health of the "cleaner fish" used to provide natural control of sea lice.

 

The trout farming sector, with its greater number of small producers, is concentrating on reducing the need for antibiotics and improving data capture.

 

The beef and sheep sectors are already low users of antibiotics, but have acknowledged they each need better data. Both have committed to a 10% reduction in antibiotic use by 2020, subject to securing better data.

 

Beef sector

 

For the beef sector, reduction in antibiotic use centres around calves and young stock, particularly in the areas of respiratory disease. There is also an emphasis on calves from dairy herds, where mixing animals from different sources can create a peak in disease pressure similar to children going to school for the first time.

 

In sheep, the focus area is the reduction of routine preventive antibiotic usage against abortion (miscarriage), lameness and neonatal lamb diseases such as watery mouth and joint ill.

 

According to Dr. Fiona Lovatt of the Targets Task Force, the sheep sector is not a high user of antibiotics. "But we want to ensure that any use is totally targeted so we are challenging all inappropriate or routine preventative use", she said.

 

"Convincing farmers to change practices is tricky, and none of us want to see an increase in levels of disease, but those who have had the courage to work with their vets to change what they do are now seeing what is possible. The answer is to take a holistic approach and work closely with a keen sheep vet."-Rick Alberto