Reports reveal livestock industry progress on AMR and responsible antibiotics use
Two reports from the Veterinary Medicines Directorate (VMD) and the Responsible Use of Medicines in Agriculture Alliance (RUMA) have been published, revealing the UK's progress on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and antibiotics sales.
The VMD's Veterinary Antibiotic Resistance and Sales Surveillance (VARSS) Report from the summary covers sales of antibiotics for food-producing animals and also the AMR monitoring programme in pigs and poultry.
The report shows that for 2023, there has been very little change in UK-level sales of antibiotics for food-producing animals since last year, maintaining a 59% reduction since 2014.
Sector-by-sector figures
However, this stable trend in total sales masks changes in antibiotic use in the individual sectors, highlighting the importance and value of the usage data collected on a voluntary basis across many of the sectors.
The report shows that following a spike in use last year, the trout sector’s antibiotic usage has reduced (by 84%) down to its lowest recorded use to date.
While many other sectors have continued to see small reductions in use, this year the pig sector has not maintained the year-on-year reductions that it has achieved previously, increasing by 18% this year.
Likewise, there has been increased antibiotic use in gamebirds. However, the lack of accurate population numbers in this sector means it is not possible to produce a mg/kg figure, making it difficult to determine how much the changes are explained by a changing pheasant population size.
Positive picture
VMD reports that this year's results from the antimicrobial resistance harmonised monitoring programme in pigs and poultry present a positive picture for AMR trends in the UK for 2023, with key indicators for resistance showing trends of decreasing resistance in the indicator commensal bacteria E.coli.
In E. coli causing disease in animals, from the clinical AMR surveillance programme, the VMD also reports reductions in resistance and concludes that these declining trends in resistance are likely a reflection of the substantial reductions in antibiotic use and improved stewardship achieved by the sectors and veterinary profession over the past years.
View the full VARSS Report on the GOV.UK website. Highlights from the report are also available on GOV.UK.
RUMA report findings
The RUMA Targets Task Force 2 report concludes that 2023 has been another year of great effort and commitment from across UK livestock sectors in the responsible use of antibiotics.
Whilst there is broadly a positive story to report back on, there are some increases in usage in some sectors which have been the result of disease outbreaks, lack of availability of key vaccines, environmental impacts, and in some cases, a combination of all three.
View the full report on the RUMA website.
Authors
James McCulloch
Simon Williams
Simon Williams is Technical Manager for AIC Services. He is based at AIC Head Office, Peterborough and is responsible for the management and coordination of the FEMAS and UFAS assurance schemes as well as being the key contact for mutual recognition with European scheme owners and managing Earned Recognition relationships with UK feed and food competent authorities.