The Awareness day loosely coincides with other awareness initiatives in the United States and Australia. There are fears that overuse and improper use of antibiotics in sectors including agriculture and the medical profession risks promoting resistance in bacteria, limiting the efficacy of modern antibiotics and jeopardising public health.

Treatment with an antibiotic can destroy many of the harmless strains of bacteria that live in and on the body. This allows resistant bacteria to quickly multiply and take their place. This ‘selection pressure’ is thought to accelerate the development of resistance where antibiotics are used inappropriately and systematically, as only resistant bacteria survive to pass on their resistance to the next generation. Some bacteria also possess the ability to pass on their resistance to other unrelated species of bacteria.

Antibiotic resistance genes have been found in animal zoonotics and there is therefore a risk that humans could be infected by resistant zoonotic pathogens and that we could get a transfer of resistant bacteria through the food chain or the environment. This has led to crackdowns on the use of antibiotics in the EU. In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration is attempting to tighten controls on antibiotics, but a voluntary reduction is having limited effects and the vital drugs are still commonly used as growth promoters, a practice which has been banned in the EU.

NFU said all antibiotics for use in food-producing animals must be prescribed by a vet to animals under their care following a clinical assessment, and are supplied by a vet or pharmacist in accordance with the prescription.

In October, the Veterinary Medicines Directorate closed a legal loophole that had allowed advertising of antibiotics directly to farmers, which had long been banned throughout the rest of the EU. Commenting on the move, Compassion in World Farming’s senior campaign manager, Emma Slawinski, said, “This is a small but important step on the road towards more responsible use of antibiotics in British farming. Much more still needs to be done if we are serious about tackling the growing threat that antibiotic resistance poses to human and animal health.

“Major restrictions are needed on the use of critically important antibiotics which are contributing to the spread of dangerous superbugs like ESBL E. coli and MRSA in British and European farm animals. The routine use of antibiotics for disease prevention must also be reduced and eventually phased out.”

Although the NFU has backed the EU’s awareness campaign, it has previously campaigned for leniency in the area of antibiotics use, claiming the drugs should be used “as little as possible, but as much as necessary”.  

NFU animal health and welfare adviser Catherine McLaughlin said on Friday (16th November), “The NFU and its farmer members recognise the threat to human and animal health of antibiotic resistance and we take the issue extremely seriously.  Antibiotic Awareness day provides an ideal opportunity for the NFU to remind livestock keepers using antibiotics to ensure they are doing so responsibly, which means only using antibiotics prescribed by your vet (and supplied by the vet or from an approved source under a veterinary prescription), and using the antibiotic in accordance with the instructions on the label.”

She added, “It is vitally important to give the full dose for the whole treatment period to avoid increasing the risk of resistance, and not using antibiotics as a substitute for good farm management. Following these simple steps on-farm will help ensure that animals remain fit and healthy and all medical issues are dealt with in the appropriate manner.”

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