National Monitoring of Veterinary-Dispensed Antimicrobials for Use on Pig Farms in Austria: 2015-2020

Antimicrobial use in livestock production systems is increasingly scrutinised by consumers, stakeholders, and the veterinary profession. In Austria, veterinarians dispensing antimicrobials for use in food-producing animals have been required to report these drugs since 2015. Here, we describe the na...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Antibiotics (Basel) 2022-02, Vol.11 (2), p.216
Main Authors: Firth, Clair L, Fuchs, Reinhard, Fuchs, Klemens
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agriculture
Animal diseases
Animal health
Animal husbandry
Animals
Anti-infective agents
Antiinfectives and antibacterials
Antimicrobial agents
antimicrobial use
Dispensing
Dosage
Drug dosages
Farms
Food
Hogs
Intensive farming
Livestock
Livestock production
Medicine
Monitoring
Monitoring systems
Oxytetracycline
pigs
Polymyxins
Population
Pork industry
Swine
Swine production
veterinary
Veterinary medicine
Citations: Items that this one cites
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Antimicrobial use in livestock production systems is increasingly scrutinised by consumers, stakeholders, and the veterinary profession. In Austria, veterinarians dispensing antimicrobials for use in food-producing animals have been required to report these drugs since 2015. Here, we describe the national monitoring systems and the results obtained for Austrian pig production over a six-year period. Antimicrobial dispensing is described using the mass-based metric, milligrams per population correction unit (mg/PCU) and the dose-based metric, Defined Daily Dose (DDDvet) per year and divided into the European Medicines Agency's prudent use categories. Pig production was divided into breeding units, fattening farms, farrow-to-finish farms, and piglet-rearing systems. Over all six years and all pig production systems, the mean amount of antimicrobials dispensed was 71.6 mg/PCU or 2.2 DDDvet per year. Piglet-rearing systems were found to have the highest levels of antimicrobial dispensing in DDDvet, as well as the largest proportion of Category B antimicrobials, including polymyxins. Although progress has been made in promoting a more prudent use of antimicrobials in veterinary medicine in Austria, further steps need to be taken to proactively improve animal health and prevent disease to reduce the need for antimicrobials, particularly those critically important for human medicine, in the future.
ISSN:2079-6382
2079-6382
DOI:10.3390/antibiotics11020216