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Antimicrobial use – still a major concern worldwide

Antimicrobial use - still a major concern worldwide


Antibiotic or antimicrobial resistance (AMR) remains a greater and more pressing threat to human and animal health than climate change and yet it receives much less attention in the media, Laura Boyle, Senior Research Officer in the Teagasc Pig Development Department tells us more.

A recent study published in The Lancet estimated that 4.95 million people died of an antibiotic resistant infection in 2019, and for 1.27 million of these people their deaths were attributable to the antibiotic resistance of the infection.

It also places farm animals at risk from ineffective treatment of disease. I started and ended 2024 speaking to two very different audiences about the importance of animal welfare in addressing the threat of AMR.

In early February, I attended a parliamentary event in The House of Lords in London on ‘How to end the misuse of antibiotics in farming’. It was organised by The Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics which is an alliance of health, medical, civil society and animal welfare groups. The participants included vets, campaigners, representatives from AHDB and Red Tractor, as well as several British MPs.

The Policy and Science Manager at the “Alliance” talked about antibiotic use in farming in the UK, the impact of global farm antibiotic use on the problem of antibiotic resistance, proposed UK legislative changes and the Alliance position on animal husbandry.

Human health expert Dr. Ron Daniels, who is NHS Intensive Care Consultant and Founder of the UK Sepsis Trust, reminded people of the significance of antibiotic resistance and the impact it has on human health.

I presented evidence from work at Moorepark and abroad demonstrating how improvements to pig management and housing leads to better welfare, driven by reduced stress and a more resilient immune system, making animals healthier and therefore less in need of antibiotics.

In late October, I presented a similar story to about 500 delegates at the World Conference on Animal Welfare in the Sustainable Agri-food Systems in Beijing, China. The overall aim of the conference organised mainly by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the China Association for the Promotion of International Agricultural Cooperation was to develop a new blueprint for the green development of Chinese agriculture – including animal welfare.

Of course the situation in China differs dramatically from the UK or the EU. EU legislation that came into force on the 28th of January 2022 bans routine farm antibiotic use and restricts prophylactic use to exceptional cases and for individual animals only. It also prohibits using antibiotics to compensate for inadequate husbandry and poor hygiene. The legislation limits metaphylaxis (group treatment of animals) to cases when the risk of disease spread is high. In China, the use of antibiotics to promote growth was only banned recently and there is widespread prophylactic use of antibiotics.

Antibiotic usage down

The EU has clearly come a long way from this, with the European Surveillance of Veterinary Antimicrobial Consumption (ESVAC) reporting that sales of antibiotics for use in food-producing animals in Europe fell by more than 43% from 2011 to 2020. Ireland has been making progress too with HPRA reporting that Sales (tonnes sold) of Veterinary Antibiotics having decreased by 25% from 2018 to 2023. This is good news, but more can be done, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to raise welfare standards (and improve health) when the industry is so highly cost:price driven and pig producers are in a never ending race to stand still. Production models in which farmers receive a premium for animal products produced under higher welfare programs can help but these are limited in scope.

There are some success stories. As in most EU countries, there was a lot of criticism of animal welfare in conventional Dutch broiler production (i.e., production systems that only satisfy the legal minimum requirements) for decades. In 2014– 2015, the entire Dutch fresh broiler meat sector (representing about 30% of total domestic production) moved to a higher welfare system which included a slower growing animal, more space, and an improved light regime. This transition and with it slightly higher prices (for farmers and consumers), occurred without negative consumer responses, i.e. there was no decline in fresh meat consumption. The buy-in of processors, retailers and consumers to pay more was critical to this success story. Important factors in the transition were:

  1. The availability of a cost-efficient alternative to conventional concepts,
  2. A basic willingness to change within the entire value chain (including processors and consumers),
  3. Initiating and triggering actions by nongovernmental organisations,
  4. Decisive initiatives by retailers and,
  5. Simultaneous introduction of the new concept and replacement of the conventional concept.

An important side effect of this partial transition was that the use of antimicrobials was reduced between 2015 and 2016. If these decisive factors are present in an industry, it appears that considerable improvements with regards to animal welfare (and therefore animal health) can be obtained in a relatively short period of time. The question is, what can we do in Ireland to achieve this?

This article first appeared in the Pigs Newsletter for December. Access the full publication here