‘Challenge ourselves’ to reduce antibiotic usage amid plateauing levels, officials say

Officials have urged vets to continue challenging themselves to reduce their antibiotic usage amid a plateauing of reduction levels.

The call came after the release of the annual UK Veterinary Antimicrobial Resistance and Sales Surveillance (VARSS) and RUMA Agriculture’s Targets Task Force 2 (TTF2) reports.

The VARSS report revealed a 57% decrease in antibiotic sales for livestock since 2014 and an 84% reduction of highest priority critically important antibiotic (HP-CIAs) sales over the same period, but in both cases, there had been “essentially no change” from 2023 to 2024.

Effort and commitment

RUMA chair Cat McLaughlin said: “2024 was yet another year of great effort and commitment from across UK livestock sectors in the responsible use of antibiotics, the total quantity of antibiotics sold for livestock remains at the lowest level to date.”

However, she and Kitty Healey, the VMD’s head of antimicrobial resistance policy and surveillance team, noted reduction levels had stabilised.

Dr Healey said: “It is natural that we’re seeing a levelling off in one sense, in that I think the things that were more straightforward to do are the things that get done first.”

She added: “We’ve seen some really great progress, but we should never stop looking and challenging ourselves and making sure that even when the usage is low, that the usage is necessary, because even in some sense where usage is low, there’s still room for improvement in actual stewardship.”

‘Low-hanging fruit’

Dr McLaughlin suggested “there has been an element of low-hanging fruit was picked off first” and that while “we always anticipated that at some point we would start to see sectors starting to level off their use of antibiotics”, there is “without a doubt” more to do.

The VARSS analysis also revealed antibiotic usage in trout and salmon was at an all-time low, but slight increases in usage in pigs, gamebirds, turkeys and laying hens compared with last year.

Dr McLaughlin attributed the increases to similar issues she raised following last year’s report, such as disease outbreaks, significant vaccine supply disruption and environmental influences.

Met targets

The TTF2 report showed several targets had been met during its 2021-2024 period, including a reduction in sales of HP-CIA injectables in cattle (down 83% since 2014), the use of equal or lower than 2019 baselines of HP-CIAs in pigs and a maximum annual usage in salmon.

“I don’t think there has been any loss of enthusiasm to keep doing what we’re doing and to keep recognising why we’re doing this,” Dr McLaughlin added.

A third cycle of targets will be released on 26 November.