Antimicrobial Resistance: Address the Facts says NOAH

If the problem of antimicrobial resistance is to be solved, then it can only be done by addressing the facts. This was the conclusion of director of the National Office of Animal Health, Roger Cook in a letter published in the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (Volume 39 March 1997).

Mr Cook suggested several factors that needed to be taken into account. Firstly scale of use: anecdotal evidence based on sales values in the UK indicates that use in human medicine could be as much as 20 times the amount used in all aspects of animal treatment - veterinary therapy for pets and farm animals as well as animal husbandry.

'Furthermore', said Mr Cook, 'although attention is often focused on the use of certain specified antimicrobials as 'growth promoters', their UK sales amount to only 15% of the total use in all types of animal treatment. Unlike the human sector, there is no animal equivalent of the National Health Service and so medicines have to be paid for out of the owner's pocket - a natural limitation for unnecessary use - whether for pets or livestock.'

Since 1969 the Swann Committee guidelines have been followed in the UK, restricting the antimicrobials used in growth promotion to a small group not used in human medicine. Control of other classes of antimicrobials is equally stringent - all are available only on prescription, requiring the involvement of a veterinary surgeon, and most are for the treatment of individual animals. Many papers cited in scientific publications which implicate animal usage emanate from abroad.

'There is no complacency in the UK veterinary profession or the animal medicine industry', said Mr Cook. 'Bad practices, whether on farms or in the abattoir, are unacceptable. Regular monitoring of all medicine residues in food is not only carried out but the results are published'.

But resistance development itself is not the whole story - antibiotics are used on farms to treat disease in animals which ultimately provide human food. 'Without access to such products, the likelihood of our food coming from diseased animals would increase, with the prospect of widespread zoonotic infection of consumers. Of even greater significance when viewed on a world scale, we live on a planet where too many are short of food. Denial of antimicrobials to treat livestock would undoubtedly reduce human food supplies due to the impact of death and disease. Both zoonotic infection and food shortages offer genuine threats to human health,' said Mr Cook.

He concluded: 'There are concerns that, by focusing on use in animals, the greater probability of resistance arising as a result of high levels of medical use (possibly from poor practice in hospital wards and theatres) will be ignored'.

24 April 1997

Notes for Editors

1. For further information contact Roger Cook or Alison Glennon at NOAH, tel. +44 (0)181 367 3131
2. The National Office of Animal Health was formed on 1 January 1986 to represent the UK companies that research, develop, manufacture and market licensed animal health products. The association represents 57 companies which in 1996 accounted for around 95% of the £344 million UK animal health market.
3. The paper 'Antimicrobial resistance - use in veterinary and human medicine' by Roger R Cook was published in the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy 1997; 39: 435 (March 1997 ISSN 0305-7453)