Veterinary Antimicrobial Resistance and Sales Surveillance 2015
This report (UK VARSS) provides the details of UK veterinary antibiotic resistance and sales surveillance.
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Details
This annual publication presents veterinary antimicrobial sales data in the UK from 2011 to 2015 and antimicrobial resistance data for England and Wales from 2013 to 2015.
Antimicrobial sales data
Veterinary pharmaceutical companies submit data annually to the Veterinary Medicines Directorate (VMD) on their previous year’s sales of antimicrobials authorised for use in animals. Antimicrobials include: antibiotic, antiprotozoal and antifungal medicines. The VMD use the data provided to calculate the volume of active antimicrobial ingredient within the medicines sold.
Sales data are used as an estimate for antimicrobial usage. However, as not all antimicrobials sold will be used, sales figures are generally an overestimate. Sales data do not permit more detailed analyses, for example of the consumption of antibiotic by animal species or production class.
UK Antibiotic sales data are also submitted for inclusion in the European Surveillance of Veterinary Antimicrobial Consumption (ESVAC) project.
Monitoring of antibiotic resistance
The VMD collates data from government laboratories on antibiotic resistance in bacteria found in samples from animals. This is managed through two programmes: EU Harmonised Monitoring which is carried out as a legal requirement, and a clinical surveillance programme which relies on voluntary submission of samples by farmers and veterinary surgeons.
EU Harmonised Monitoring involves the collection of samples from healthy livestock. Samples are tested for the presence of antibiotic resistant bacteria. The bacteria of interest are those which can potentially transfer between animals and man (zoonotic organisms). Specifically, this includes bacteria which are common causes of food poisoning such as Salmonella, Campylobacter and E. coli.
The clinical surveillance programme involves the collection of samples from deceased animals that have been submitted to government laboratories by a farmer or veterinary surgeon wanting to determine cause of death. Any bacteria identified, including those which may cause disease in animals (veterinary pathogens), are tested for antibiotic resistance.
Findings from both programmes are reported to the VMD. Monitoring antibiotic resistance allows changes or trends in the level of resistance to be picked up.
Data from these surveillance programmes is also submitted to the European Food Safety authority (EFSA) for inclusion in the annually published European Union Summary Report on Antimicrobial resistance in zoonotic and indicator bacteria from humans, animals and food in the European Union.
You can find previous reports on the collection page.
Updates to this page
Published 17 November 2016Last updated 22 November 2016 + show all updates
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Due to a typographical error, amendments have been made to the results presented in the EU Harmonised Monitoring data on pages 13, 33 (Figure 3.1), 34 (Table 3.1), 35 (Table 3.2) and 87 (Table A10.1).
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Due to a typographical error, amendments have been made to the results presented in the EU Harmonised Monitoring data on pages 13, 33 (Figure 3.1), 34 (Table 3.1), 35 (Table 3.2) and 87 (Table A10.1).
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First published.