Following World Antibiotics Awareness Week, 20 senior representatives from health and medical organisations co-signed a letter, published in the Times, calling on the UK Government and European Commission to put an end to routine, purely preventative antibiotic use in groups of healthy animals - referred to as ‘inconsistent with all responsible-use guidance.’

The letter follows a Veterinary Medicines Directorate’s report which revealed that the total UK veterinary sales in 2014 of antibiotics classified as “critically important in human medicine” increased by 3% to a new record high.  The total sales of antibiotics licensed for food animals only also increased by 4%.

Concerns about the routine use of antibiotics in farming have been heightened this week after the discovery of a new form of resistance in E. coli in pigs and people in China which makes the bacteria resistant to colistin, an antibiotic used as a last-resort in human medicine. The VMD report also reveals that colistin-resistant salmonella has now been found in UK livestock: 5% of salmonella from egg-laying birds were resistant to the antibiotic which can be used in laying birds.

Farm animals account for almost two thirds of all antibiotics used in 26 European countries. Medical experts have now set out their wish for the current revision of the EU Veterinary Medicinal Products legislation to introduce a ban on the purely preventative treatment of groups of animals where no disease has been diagnosed in any of the animals being treated.

Babulal Sethia, President of the Royal Society of Medicine commented, “While GPs strive to curb prescribing practices, the farming sector also needs to move towards more selective antibiotic administration. The preventative treatment of groups of healthy animals when no disease has been diagnosed is not responsible use.”

At present, the European Commission proposals for the new Veterinary Medicinal Products legislation would allow routine preventative use to continue. Furthermore, although the UK Government says it is opposed to routine preventative use of antibiotics in animals, it does not yet support proposals to end preventative treatment of groups of healthy animals. In contrast, the European Medicine Agency wants to end such group treatments but does not have the power to legislate for a ban.

Although industry groups have downplayed the role of animal antibiotics in developing resistance, and even in the face of the recent discovery in China maintained that there is no concrete evidence of a link between developing resistant strains of bacteria in humans and animals, Dr David McCoy, a physician and Director of London-based global public health charity Medact said, "The over-use of antibiotics in farm animals and its potential to accelerate antimicrobial resistance threatens to turn the clock on the history of medical advancement. Members of the medical community, with colleagues in veterinary medicine, must get involved with much-needed reforms of the industrialised farming sector in particular".

Last month the farmers’ unions of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden also called on their governments to propose a full EU ban on the routine preventative use of antibiotics.

Emma Rose from the Alliance to Save our Antibiotics commented, “Routinely dosing healthy animals on a purely preventative basis is something we simply cannot afford to do if we are to have a chance of preserving drugs for the future. If animals cannot remain healthy within the conditions in which they are placed, perhaps it is time to take a closer look at our farming systems”

Nearly 90% of farm antibiotic use in the UK is for group treatments of pigs and poultry, often via mass medication through feed or water. The VMD clarified earlier this year that no disease diagnosis in any of the animals is required before mass medication is applied.