November 13, 2018

UK sales of livestock antibiotics fall to lowest since 1993

The sales of antibiotics for use in UK's food-producing livestock had dropped 18% between 2016 and 2017, declining to their lowest level since 1993, Farming UK reported in late October.

Sales now settled at 37mg/kg, according to a report by Defra's Veterinary Medicines Directorate, which also revealed that sales plunged 40% between 2013 and 2017. The report shows data on antibiotics use in beef and dairy ruminants, trout, salmon, poultry, pig and game birds. 

For healthy pigs, the rate of resistance in these animals at slaughter continues to be stable between 2015 and 2017, in relation to most antibiotics tested. But, with E.coli, a decline in the rate of resistance was observed along with decreased antibiotics use in pigs.

According to the report, a further drop was seen in the sales of the most important antibiotics for human health.

Reduction of antibiotics use in animals for the last few years was mainly witnessed first in the poultry meat sector, then pigs and game birds, the Responsible Use of Medicines in Agriculture (RUMA) pointed out.

While the latest findings in Defra's report was well-received by UK's Minister for Rural Affairs and Biosecurity and RUMA, Gwyn Jones, chair of RUMA, said that much work is needed to be done in order to ensure the protection of animal health and food safety.

"Because a large percentage of products are used to treat multiple species of animal, figures for actual use by species, on farms, are critical to understand patterns in individual sectors. They are also needed to help those sectors to monitor, improve and get recognition for their achievements - and to meet their 2020 antibiotic use targets," Jones added.

However, national data on the dairy and beef sector may not be comprehensive or capture accurate figures, as these sectors have more diverse supply chains, as well as the high number of producers involved and the significant presence of mixed enterprise operations.

"This means we can't be sure of how representative the figures are. For example, antibiotic usage figures in the 2017 report indicate that dairy cows fell from 26mg/kg in 2016 to 17mg/kg in 2017. This is based on one large dataset of veterinary practice prescriptions - the best we currently have - but we must be mindful that because this database covers 31% of dairy cows, it may not be typical of the whole dairy sector," Jones explained.

"Improving the quality of data collection can only help us better understand where we really are, and inform and advise those who need to change their practices."

- Farming UK