Monitoring AntimicrobialDrug Usage in Animals:Methods and Applications

摘要

Monitoring antimicrobial drug usage in animalsat the national and international levels is important foridentification and tracking if and how often quantities are used.This information can be used for many purposes, includingraising awareness, comparing use patterns across countries,identifying trends over time, integrating with antimicrobialresistance data, conducting risk assessment, and evaluatingthe effectiveness of measures to manage antimicrobial usage.The goal of this article is to describe how monitoring systems forantimicrobial drug usage in animals are set up and conducted,using examples from specific countries as well as internationalefforts. Several key figures and variables are used to describe andevaluate antimicrobial consumption in animals, including theamount in kilograms of active ingredient, standardized units(e.g., number of defined daily dose animals, DDDAs) and numberof treatments (e.g., number of used daily doses, UDDA). Data canbe collected from a variety of sources including pharmaceuticalsales, pharmacy dispensing, veterinary prescriptions, and farmrecords. In many countries, data analysis and reporting at thenational level provide statistics on overall quantities used inanimals, in some cases by animal species. Antimicrobialconsumption data should be contrasted to the respectiveanimal population, for example, the weight of differentcategories of livestock and slaughtered animals. Severalcountries have established antimicrobial usage monitoringsystems. Most report overall sales data, but some provideusage data to the levels of animal species and production type.At the international level, several organizations (e.g., EuropeanUnion, World Organization for Animal Health, World HealthOrganization) have initiatives to support the development ofantimicrobial consumption data collection and reporting.However, these initiatives are ongoing and so far lackharmonization, which will be the biggest challenge for the future.