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Antimicrobial stewardship needs constant attention
Fluroquinolone resistance in campylobacter is currently at moderate levels across the UK, despite not having been used in broiler meat production for the best part of eight years. Further studies on the impact of antibiotic reduction strategies and how they affect the resistance of important organisms are needed, according to leading UK poultry vet Daniel Parker.
BY TONY MCDOUGAL “W
Unlike the US, the UK did not want to go as far as a ‘no antibiotic ever’ approach. Medi- cines are impor- tant for animal welfare.
20 ▶ POULTRY WORLD | No. 8, 2021
e need to understand why fluro- quinolone resistance still exists and how we can modify our reduction plans to change that. These are the
sorts of questions we need to look at,” Parker told a recent Re- sponsible Use of Medicines/Society for Applied Microbiology webinar. Daniel Parker, RUMA Independent Scientific Group member, said the British Poultry Council had established a stewardship group in 2011 in the light of growing antimicrobi- al resistance (AMR) levels, fluroquinolone resistance in food- borne organisms – campylobacter and salmonella – and some government interventions in parts of Europe. The poultry meat sector was also under attack from the media and NGOs, and there was a lack of data. As a result, the collec- tion of antibiotic usage data was shared with BPC members to understand what was being used so that a level of self-bench- marking could be achieved. It had to be pre-competitive, he said. “We didn’t want this to be a competitive situation where retailers and food service sectors potentially could use antibi- otic use as a lever on purchasing as this has happened in the US and has been very negative for the industry.”
Significant reduction In terms of achievements, Parker noted that antibiotic sales have reduced significantly. Total antibiotic sales in 2012 amounted to 464 tonnes sold for all animal species with 396 tonnes going into food-producing animals with 20% of that going into chickens (82 tonnes). There had been major reduc- tions by 2019. Antibiotic sales in food-producing animals had fallen to 179.3 tonnes and with just 19.7 tonnes or 10% going into poultry meat. It is important to note, he said, that 52 to 68 tonnes of active ingredients are going to the pets and horse sectors. Looking at the Population Correction Unit (PCU), Parker said that mg/PCU chicken levels had fallen from 48 mg/PCU to just 17 mg/PCU in 2019, although this had risen from a nadir of 9.5 mg/PCU in 2017. However, he believed the figure had stabilised after a sharp decline. The turkey sector has seen levels fall from 219.5 mg/PCU in 2014 to 42 mg/PCU in 2019. In the last seven years there had been a 97% reduction in crit- ically important antibiotics (fluroquinolones, cephalosporins, macrolides and colistin in the UK).
Treatment for welfare But, unlike the US, the UK did not want to go as far as a ‘no antibiotic ever approach. Medicines are important for animal welfare, he said, adding that it was vital to preserve the limit- ed armoury of antibiotics still available in the poultry sector – far fewer than those available for use on pets and humans. Cat McLaughlin, RUMA chair for farm animals, said the UK had halved its sales of antibiotics for farm animals since 2014 and now had the fifth lowest level of sales in Europe – after Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland – which all have very different production systems and climate to the UK. McLaughlin said sales of highest priority critically important antibiotics for UK farm animals had also fallen since 2014 and sales of colistin were virtually zero. “Less than 30% of the UK’s antibiotics are used to treat disease in farm animals and that’s despite more than one billion farm animals being reared every year,” she said. “Levels of antibiotic resistance found through government monitoring and surveillance are also stabilising and falling in response to reductions in use, and we’ve achieved all of this through voluntary industry action facilitated by RUMA in col- laboration with government agencies and using industry targets,” she told the joint RUMA/Society for Applied Microbiology webinar.
PHOTO: JAN WILLEM VAN VLIET
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