Friday, March 29, 2024

Low antibiotic use a sales pitch

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New Zealand farm systems are in an enviable position of low antibiotic use but vets are calling for more haste from regulators to lay out a clear policy and pathway to ensure the drugs remain effective and use stays low. Veterinary Association head Callum Irvine said NZ had a good story to tell about the lower level of antibiotic use here and how that ensured resistance to antibiotics was slow to develop.
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He was speaking during World Antibiotic Awareness Week, created to raise public and professional awareness of the risks of antibiotic resistance developing, with no alternative treatments on the horizon.

Human health professionals were well familiar with things like MRSA, a bacterium resistant to many commonly used antibiotics.

Globally, there was concern the use of antibiotics in production animal systems could encourage the development of resistant bacteria that could move into humans.

However, the issue was not straightforward, Irvine said.

Some data suggested a slow rise in resistance over time in animal bacteria in NZ, albeit from a low base.

“Part of the problem is every country measures their use of antibiotics differently.

“Our science research shows we are well below some countries, in some cases half what they use.”

A robust regulatory framework and controls over the prescription of antibiotics played a big part in that.

Some countries in southeast Asia had deregulated antibiotic sales while there were also issues around drug quality and formulation that reduced their effectiveness and increased the rate of resistance development.

Even the United States had a relatively deregulated market it was trying to claw back to veterinary control.

“While we have this framework, we are not immune to the risk and there are certainly things in our own backyard we could clean up,” Irvine said.

“It would be the wrong thing to not talk about it.”

The issue often proved sensitive in industry circles and it was also easy for sectors to get defensive about their use and systems for antibiotics.

Poultry and pork producers in particular had come in for flak about the regular use of antibiotics in feeds.

“But these sectors have done much to reduce their use. They no longer use growth promoting drugs and often the drugs they use are not used in human health areas.”

There was still a place on pastoral farms for better diagnosis, administration and use of antibiotics.

“There is room for more exacting diagnosis to ensure the right type of drug on the right occasion and used for the right period.

“Vets are really entrusted with the guardianship of these drugs to prolong their effective useful life, given there are really no alternatives coming along at present.”

However, vets also needed cow-side diagnostic tools to determine infection type to better guide them on treatment type.

“Vets are really entrusted with the guardianship of these drugs to prolong their effective useful life, given there are really no alternatives coming along at present.”

Callum Irvine

Veterinary Assn

The potential for NZ farm systems to claim they were antibiotic-free was a compelling label to put on food products and in some cases Irvine believed we were close.

“NZ lamb, for example, is a product that would often be there.”

Having a regulatory pathway and policy now would help NZ head off a growing level of attention in Europe to treatments like antibiotic dry cow therapy.

NZ farmers regularly used it as a preventive treatment to reduce seasonal mastitis.

“There is a sense that over time blanket dry cow treatment could be reviewed but we need to have better diagnostic tests to determine when to use it and alternative treatments, whether it is teat sealants, a vaccine or some other treatment.”

Ministry for Primary Industries deputy director of regulation Scott Gallacher said the department was in close dialogue with all sectors of the industry and the Ministry of Health.

He fully expected that in six to 12 months MPI would be more explicit and proactive in its requirements around antibiotic use.

He agreed there was room for the NZ industry to have more specific data on what types of antibiotics were used where and possibly regular reviews on resistance levels in those antibiotic families.

“We have a strong commitment to reflect on what else we can do to ensure we can be as information-rich as possible.”

Dairy veterinarian and researcher Dr Scott McDougall said antibiotic resistance had become a critical issue in human health.

“As a precaution, the animal health sector has to play its role in the story.”

The issue of using antibiotics as a preventive treatment was complex and controversial in research sectors in terms of its contribution to resistance development.

He said lumping all antibiotics under the one title was a fraught practice when there were families of drug types within the antibiotics descriptor and some were not used in human health.

“Even if resistance developed in animals to it, it is not a risk to humans. The mechanism of resistance is not likely to be transferable.

“We do have to be careful about knee-jerk reactions to resistance and be up front that there are still a lot of gaps in our scientific knowledge about it.”

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