A 10% reduction in sales of antibiotics for use in food-producing animals in the UK has been described as 'very encouraging' by RUMA, a group which promotes responsible use of medicines in farm animals.
The group's secretary general John FitzGerald said they were delighted to see the hard work that has taken place in the farming industry over the past couple of years is already paying off.
"This is a complex challenge and it’s a fine balance to reduce and refine use of antibiotics without compromising animal welfare. These results bode well for the 2016 figures as momentum builds in tackling the challenge of antibiotic resistance in farm animals."
Of particular note, says Mr FitzGerald, is a 10% reduction in sales of products licensed for both pigs and poultry, and 24% all in pig-only products.
The poultry meat industry, which records data for 90% of the national flock under its British Poultry Council antibiotic stewardship scheme, also reported a reduction of 27% in use over 2014.
Mr FitzGerald says: "This means we are not seeing any increased risk to humans from transmission of antimicrobial resistance through food, and good kitchen hygiene rules still apply – washing hands after handling raw meat and thorough cooking of meat will almost completely prevent the transmission of resistant bacteria.
"However, these findings do highlight the challenge; tackling antibiotic resistance is going to take more than just a reduction in use – we need a multi-faceted approach which includes strategic use of a range of medicines to reduce and eliminate disease pressure while we also increase inherent immunity to disease among our farm animals."
'Shocking overuse'
Data released by the European Medicines Agency said countries in the EU are failing to put an end to massive overuse of antibiotics in farming. And use of antibiotics remains more than twice as high in animals as in humans within Europe.
"The shocking overuse of farm antibiotics shown by these data is a result of the continued failure by most countries to ban routine preventative mass medication in intensive farming," said Cóilín Nunan, from the Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics.
"Spain now uses 100 times more antibiotics per unit of livestock than Norway, 80 times more than Iceland and 35 times more than Sweden. The main reason for the difference is that Spain, like most of Europe, allows routine mass medication, whereas the Nordic countries do not.
"The increased use of last-resort and critically important antibiotics is particularly alarming and confirms that reliance on voluntary and softly-softly approaches is not working," Mr Nunan said.
