Protein Producers Fall 2017

Antibiotic Stewardship: A Way Forward to Ensure Antibiotics Will Continue to be Effective into the Future By: Dr. Kev Sullivan, Production Animal Consultation Australia Antibiotics are medicines or compounds that act to selectively kill or inhibit the growth of bacteria. Antibiotics are not effective against viruses and rely on the animal’s immune system to work effectively. Tetracyclines, penicillins, sulphonamides and macrolides are examples of antibiotics.

Antibiotic resistance refers to the acquired ability of bacteria to survive in the presence of an antibiotic that previously was able to kill or inhibit the growth of that bacteria. Resistance can be acquired by the appearance of favorable mutations or by acquiring pre-selected genes for resistance from other bacteria.

Stewardship is a collection of practices that protects valuable resources that belong to everyone, e.g., oceans, forests, rivers and air. The growing crisis of antibiotic resistance in humans has concentrated a lot of attention on the way in which antibiotics are used.

Antibiotic stewardship applies to the protection of antibiotic and other antimicrobial substances to limit antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and preserve their effectiveness so they can continue to work and maintain the health of humans and animals into the future.

In the veterinary space, antibiotic stewardship could be defined as “a multifactorial and dynamic approach to sustain the clinical efficacy of antimicrobials by optimizing drug use, choice, dose, duration and route of administration while minimizing the emergence of resistance and other adverse effects.”

Antibiotic stewardship promotes planning about how to reduce the need to use antibiotics rather than just using them judiciously.

Prudent or judicious use of antibiotics is very important and is an integral part of any stewardship program. Prudent use of antibiotics ensures that antibiotics are used at the correct dose, administered by the correct route for the correct duration to ensure that animals will respond to the treatment. Importantly, prudent use also ensures that there is no risk of antibiotic residues in the products of animals that enter the food chain by observing withdrawal periods in animals that have been treated with antibiotics.

Antibiotic stewardship programs are built around 5 core principles, also known as the 5 Rs. These are: 1. Responsibility 2. Review 3. Reduce 4. Replace 5. Refine Responsibility: It is crucial that everyone at the feedlot, including managers, administration people, stock crew, feed team and maintenance crew, is on-board in recognizing the need to preserve the effectiveness of pacdvms.com 13